MANAGING CHANGE: INTEGRATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE VALUES AND
INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION
by
STEPHANIE LAURA CIMINO
A THESIS
Presented to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program:
Historic Preservation
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Science
June 2009
"Managing Change: Integrating Cultural Landscape Values and Industrial Heritage
Preservation," a thesis prepared by Stephanie Laura Cimino in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Master of Science degree in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program:
Historic Preservation. This thesis has been approved and accepted by:
Date r lf~-'--
11
Committee in Charge:
Accepted by:
Robert Z. Melnick, Chair
Mark Davison
Dean of the Graduate School
© 2009 Stephanie L. Cimino
111
IV
An Abstract of the Thesis of
Stephanie Laura Cimino for the degree of Master of Science
in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program: Historic Preservation
to be taken June 2009
Title: MANAGING CHANGE: INTEGRATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE VALUES
AND INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION
Approved:
Robert Z. Melnick, Chair
This thesis provides new ways to understand preservation theory and management
objectives for industrial heritage sites by analyzing existing mechanisms for their
preservation through values and practices associated with cultural landscape preservation.
In addition to discussing the theory and development of existing preservation approaches to
cultural landscapes and industrial heritage sites, the study identifies characteristics and
values aimed at expanding the framework of historic industrial landscape preservation
practice. Using case studies of western hard-rock mining landscapes as the primary
examples, the study argues that management strategies based on traditional preservation
practices are insufficient for interpreting the complexity of these historic places, and that
historic industrial landscape preservation is best served by attending to the range of values
and processes associated with the historic landscape and its protection.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Stephanie Laura Cimino
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
University of California, Santa Cruz
DEGREES AWARDED:
Master of Science, Historic Preservation, 2009, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, 2002, University of California, Santa Cruz
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Cultural Landscape Preservation
Industrial Heritage
Historical Archaeology
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Administrative Fellow, Historic Preservation Program,
University of Oregon, Eugene, 2008-2009
President, Associated Students ,for Historic Preservation, University of
Oregon, Eugene, 2008-2009
HABS/HAER Photographic Consultant, Mesa Technical, Berkeley,
California, 2003-2007
Archaeologist, Pacific Legacy, Inc., Berkeley, California, 2006-2007
v
VI
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Dean's Graduate Fellowship, School of Architecture and Allied Arts,
University of Oregon, 2009
College and Department Honors, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2002
PUBLICATIONS:
Cimino, Stephanie Laura. "Not-So-Strange Bedfellows: Reconciling Historic
Preservation and Historical Archaeology." ASHP Journal 22 (Spring, 2009):6-
11.
Cimino, Stephanie Laura. "Preservation on the Pacific Rim: International
Approaches to Preservation Practice at the University of Oregon." ASHP
Journal 21 (Spring, 2008): 33-38.
VB
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project could not have happened without the support of many individuals.
First, I must thank my incredible committee, without whose insight, encouragement, and
organization this project may never have come to fruition. I am especially grateful to my
committee chair, Robert Z. Melnick, for teaching me how to "make peanut butter" from the
jumble of intellectual nuggets that comprise the research process, and my committee
member, Mark Davison, for keeping me grounded in the practical application of the big
ideas. I also want to thank the managers and personnel at the case study sites who
graciously answered my questions and provided me with information throughout this
process, including Steve Peterson and Susan Dolan of the National Park Service, Kathleen
Kennedy of Califomia State Parks, Mimi Rodden of the Tonopah Historic Mining Park,
and Bob Maxwell ofArgo Gold Mill and Museum. Finally, I must acknowledge my cohort
in the Historic Preservation Program, who provided me with love and laughter whenever I
started to succumb to stress and doubt. And of course, I wouldn't even be here without the
support and devotion of my partner, Sam. I couldn't have asked for a better companion to
accompany me through this process.
To my family, who may not understand all that I do,
but always encourage me to do the best that I can.
Vlll
IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. HERITAGE VALUES AND INDUSTRIAL PLACES 1
The Dynamic Landscape........................................................................................ 1
The Potential of Values-Based Preservation.......................................................... 4
Guiding Values 10
Thesis Organization............................................................................................... 11
II. CREATING THE HERITAGE LANDSCAPE 14
Objective 14
Value Systems........................................................................................................ 15
Cultural Landscape Values 18
Application.......................................... 22
III. CULTURAL LANDSCAPES, INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE,
AND PRESERVAnON PRACTICE..................................................................... 24
Cultural Landscapes as Heritage Resources 24
Cultural Landscape Preservation........................................................................... 25
Industrial Heritage 32
Industrial Landscape Preservation 37
Development.................................................................................................... 37
Chapter
Perception .
Aspiration .
IV.WESTERN MINING LANDSCAPES .
Mining Heritage .
Historic Mining Landscapes .
Mining Landscape Preservation .
V. CASE STUDIES .
Kennecott National Historic Landmark .
Fundamentals .
Location ..
Historical Overview .
Site History .
Landscape Characteristics .
Processes .
Space .
Time .
Change .
Summary .
Bodie State Historic Park .
Fundamentals .
Location .
x
Page
44
50
52
52
53
57
65
68
68
69
70
73
74
74
77
79
80
82
83
83
84
Chapter
Xl
Page
Historical Overview......................................................................................... 85
Site History...................................................................................................... 86
Landscape Characteristics................................................................................ 89
Processes.................................................................................................... 89
Space 91
Time 93
Change 94
Summary.......................................................................................................... 95
Tonopah Historic Mining Park 97
Fundamentals................................ 97
Location........................................................................................................... 98
Historical Overview......................................................................................... 100
Site History...................................................................................................... 101
Landscape Characteristics................................................................................ 102
Processes.................................................................................................... 102
Space 103
Time 105
Change 106
Summary.......................................................................................................... 108
Chapter Page
XII
Argo Gold Mill & Museum 109
Fundamentals................................................................................................... 109
Location........................................................................................................... 110
Historical Overview......................................................................................... 112
Site History...................................................................................................... 113
Landscape Characteristics................................................................................ 113
Process....................................................................................................... 113
Space 115
Time 117
Change 118
Summary.......................................................................................................... 119
VI. DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE 120
Divergence............................................................................................................. 122
Convergence 131
VII. MANAGING CHANGE 136
Findings and Recommendations 141
Future Research 147
Integration.............................................................................................................. 148
REFERENCES 150
Xlll
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
2.1 Dominant Values within Preservation Systems..................................................... 18
2.2 Associations between Landscape Characteristics. 21
5.1 Case Study Location Map 67
5.2 Portion of the historic mill town at Kennecott National Historic Landmark. 68
5.3 Location of Kennecott National Historic Landmark 69
5.4 Kennecott NHL in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve................. 70
5.5 Boundary of Kennecott NHL................................................................................. 71
5.6 Site plan of the Kennecott mill town 72
5.7 Buildings in the pathway of National Creek, Kennecott NHL. 75
5.8 Historic view of Kennecott (circa 1910)................................................................ 81
5.9 The cultural landscape of Bodie State Historic Park 83
5.10 Location of Bodie State Historic Park................................................................. 84
5.11 Boundaries of Bodie State Historic Park 87
5.12 Map of the town site of Bodie.............................................................................. 88
5.13 Pre-1962 stabilization efforts in Bodie, CA.............. 91
5.14 The historic Standard Mill and surroundings in Bodie State Historic Park 94
5.15 Tonopah Historic Mining Park 97
Figure
XIV
Page
5.16 Location of Tonopah Historic Mining Park......................................................... 98
5.17 Site Plan and Boundaries of Tonopah Historic Mining Park............................... 99
5.18 Mitzpah Mine in Tonopah, Nevada (circa 1937) 106
5.19 Argo Gold Mill and Museum............................................................................... 109
5.20 Location of Argo Gold Mill and Museum 110
5.21 Approximate Boundaries of Argo Gold Mill and Museum Site 111
5.22 Site Plan of Argo Gold Mill and Museum 111
5.23 Historic Argo Mill under construction in 1913............. 116
7.1 Recommended changes for integrating values into current preservation
procedures.............................................................................................................. 146
xv
LIST OF TABLES
Figure Page
6.1 Expression of Landscape Characteristics at Kennecott NHL, Bodie SHP,
Tonopah Historic Mining Park, and Argo Mill & Museum 121
ICHAPTER I
HERITAGE VALUES AND n~DUSTRIAL PLACES
The Dynamic Landscape
Abandoned factories, collapsed mine shafts, dormant smokestacks; these are just a
few of the elements visible in the historic industrial landscape. Some may find beauty in
these landscapes, some may see historical artifacts, and others may see a pile of useless
debris waiting to be swept away. Each of these perceptions reflects a particular value
brought to the heritage place by the participant. Understanding the meaning and
treatment of value in heritage practice is essential for the success of any preservation
effort. Nevertheless, identifying and incorporating multiple values into preservation
practice has proven a difficult task, in part due to the complexity of applying values to a
system still focused on the primacy of material evidence. The concept of "value" in
historic preservation usually refers to the "positive characteristics attributed to heritage
places by legislation, governing authorities, and other stakeholders."] These values tend
to be defined by statutory criteria, such as those listed in the National Register of Historic
Places, and officially include aesthetic, historical, associative and scientific values.
However, this system is misleading. Values are more than official designations; they are
social constructions rather than inherent characteristics.
1 Francois Le Blanc, "Values, Authenticity and Integrity for Good Management," in New Views on Authenticity and
Integrity in the World Heritage a/the Americas, ed. Dr. Francisco Javier Lopez Morales (San Miguel de Allende,
Guanajuato, Mexico: ICOMOS, August 24-26,2005), 75.
2For most people, the value of place extends beyond codification, and not all
values may hold positive connotations. Values ascribed to heritage places may focus on
not only aesthetics or historic fabric, but also the educational, economic, and social
benefits that can come from heritage protection. In addition, values may concentrate on
symbolic, psychological, and nostalgic associations with the past. Applying values to
heritage protection must therefore acknowledge that the heritage of a given place will
have many, often competing values. Negotiating these values is important; placing one
value over another can contribute to indifference or hostility towards the landscape that is
being preserved. 2 For instance, a site with high historical value, but protected against
interests of community, will have little social value; a site with high aesthetic or historical
value, but without adequate interpretation, will have little educational value. 3 In other
words, incomprehensible, inaccessible, uninterpreted, and un-cared for sites (sites that do
not include multiple values) will not be successful in their stated mission of contributing
to the enrichment of present and future generations.
The successful preservation of historic industrial places is especially dependent on
addressing the issue of values. Because the remains of industrial culture are both
fragmented and commonplace, preservation activities must cross geographic, temporal,
and psychological boundaries to best represent the meanings and values ascribed to the
these landscapes. Many preservation guidelines, while important for organizing and
2 Zbigniew Kobylinski, "Protection, Maintenance and Enhancement of Cultural Landscapes in Changing Social,
Political and Economical Reality in Poland," in Landscapes Under Pressure: Theory and Practice ofCultural
Heritage Research and Preservation, ed. Ludomir R. Lozny (New York: Springer Science+Business Media Inc., 2006),
213.
3 Ibid.
3classifying themes and material, have proven insufficient for describing the patterns of
change that are essential components of an industrial landscape. Unfortunately, as
happens in much preservation practice, there has been a tendency to focus on the more
easily recognized and understood aesthetic and architectural values of industrial sites that
describe iconic features over the associative and other social and cultural values that
represent the more common vernacular industrial landscape. In addition, relationships
between preservationists and community members often sour over how an industrial site
can be transformed and commemorated, especially for those who have recently seen their
livelihood become "heritage" through the effects of de-industrialization. Conflicting
views on the value of industry as progress and industry as destruction persist from the
earliest days of the industrial revolution. Some perceive preservation as resistant to the
economic and social development they desire. To ensure adequate understanding of the
industrial past and its relationship to present perceptions, the multiple perspectives and
values of the people involved in a preservation effort need to be made explicit for any
industrial heritage project to succeed.
There is a growing interest within the preservation community for preserving sites
and features related to important elements of industrial heritage. However, many
conventional approaches to managing heritage sites are not sufficient for the complex,
extensive, and often fragmentary remains that embody the industrial landscape. The
dominance of visual, aesthetic and commemorative values associated with traditional
preservation paradigms cannot fully explain the essential qualities of these types of
resources. A more inclusive approach would incorporate a system for understanding
4values into current cultural landscape preservation practice where space, time, change,
and process become primary characteristics of the heritage place. As scholar Michael
Frisch points out, industrial heritage is as much about the physical landscape as, "an
invention variously to preserve, document, frame, celebrate, engage, mobilize, and
present this heritage in order to have a meaningful impact on the present and future
[italics mine].,,4 Industrial heritage sites are thus dynamic places that embody multiple
values influencing perceptions of the past and promise for the future. This thesis
provides new ways to understand preservation theory and management objectives for
industrial heritage sites in the United States by analyzing existing mechanisms for the
preservation of these sites through the lens of values and practices associated with
cultural landscape preservation. Using western mining landscapes as the primary
example, this approach will show that landscapes can retain their historic integrity and
still exist as dynamic, living spaces that include the complex range of values associated
with the preservation process.
The Potential of Values-Based Preservation
Incorporating values into industrial heritage management is a complex process.
On one hand, inattention to the multiplicity of values produces tension among
stakeholders and provides an incomplete story of the historic place in question. On the
other, practitioners must guard against falling into the trap of relativism. There is a need
and purpose behind cultural heritage guidelines. Laws and regulations help to determine
4 Michael Frisch, "De-, Re-, and Post-Industrialization: Industrial Heritage as Contested Memorial Terrain," Journal of
Folklore Research 35, no. 3 (1998): 243.
5what we value for its broader cultural associations and whether and how to preserve
elements of that heritage within the framework of public interest. 5 Codification provides
a way for people across cultures and boundaries to make informed decisions about the
universal value of the heritage place. Unfortunately, regulations often end up creating as
much conflict as consensus. The protection of historic industrial landscapes falls under a
variety of local, state, and national jurisdictions that frequently differ in their
interpretations and expectations of the actions and outcomes prescribed by regulatory
procedures. Utilizing historic preservation regulations as a framework for encouraging
the discussion of values from the beginning of the process could alleviate some of this
conflict. It would also help to avoid overriding or ignoring community concerns by
putting academic and commemorative values on equal footing with values promoted by
the community.
This form of values-based preservation has gained momentum in many heritage
organizations, especially overseas. In 2008, English Heritage in Britain adopted the
Conservation Principles Policies and Guidance for the Sustainable Management ofthe
Historic Environment, which identified four "headline values" that should guide
decisions about heritage management. Though the values are meant to embody "heritage
values which are culturally ascribed to places" rather than "instrumental" values such as
economic and social benefits that may derive from protection of heritage values, they
5 Thomas F. King, "Cultural Heritage Preservation and the Legal System With Specific Reference to Landscapes," in
Landscapes Under Pressure: Theory and Practice ofCultural Heritage Research and Preservation, ed. Ludomir R.
Lozny (New York: Springer Science+Business Media Inc., 2006), 238.
6form a more coherent picture of what constitutes heritage than previous traditions. 6 The
values include the evidential, which is the potential for a place to yield information about
past activity and is often associated with the traditional professional fields of inquiry; the
historical, which can be associative or illustrative; the aesthetic, which can include
multiple perceptions; and the communal, where meanings of place are constructed by and
for the people who relate to a heritage site. These values are not meant to be mutually
exclusive, but rather to be used comprehensively to engage the multiple meanings of a
heritage place.7 Adopting the Principles has officially produced what is called Heritage
Protection Reform in Britain, which aims to move beyond traditional practices to
embrace the idea of change. 8
The importance of identifying and incorporating multiple values into heritage
preservation practice has also received attention in the United States. The most obvious
manifestation of this is the criteria for listing on the National Register of Historic Places,
which attempts to codify a variety of historical, associative, informational, and aesthetic
values important at the national scale. The introduction of cultural landscape
preservation guidelines has also added evidence of process and cultural meaning to the
list of significant characteristics associated with historic places. However, regulatory
reform specifically articulating or codifying the centrality of stakeholder values to
cultural landscape preservation has not yet occurred, and many values continue to be
6 Paul Drury, "A sense of value," Conservation bulletin 60 (Spring 2009): 8.
7 Drury, 9.
8 Peter Beacham, "Heritage Protection Reform," Conservation bulletin 60 (Spring 2009): 10.
7defined more narrowly than their overseas counterparts. For instance, academic
perceptions still tend to dominate aesthetic values, and communal values are only
vaguely articulated as ethnographic or cultural traditions.
In order to better promote industrial heritage preservation, practitioners must thus
move beyond the preoccupation with physical artifacts and exemplary histories towards
seeing industrial heritage places as "interactive landscapes" of competing and
complimentary values. 9 Merely identifying that values exist does not automatically
create consensus. A more holistic approach would articulate and balance different values
as the heart of heritage management activity. 10 From this perspective, values-based
management provides a vehicle for coordinating both the interests of the stakeholders and
the ongoing protection of the historic fabric and significance of a place. Choosing what
to preserve and how to preserve it has always been a deliberate process based on personal
and cultural values. I I International and federal laws and guidelines have been successful
at promoting values associated with cultural heritage at the universal and national levels;
however, participants at the regional, local and personal levels often possess their own set
of values that influences the preservation agenda. Examining the philosophies,
management practices, and values guiding preservation efforts is thus an extremely
important part of understanding industrial site preservation.
9 Richard Francaviglia, "Boomtowns and Ghost Towns: Learning from the West's Preserved Historic Mining
Landscapes," in Preserving Western History, ed. Andrew Guilliford (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
2005),362.
10 Le Blanc, 73.
II For an excellent discussion on how the past is used for present purposes see David Lowenthal, Possessed by the
Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils o/History (New York: The Free Press, 1996).
8Remembering that historic industrial landscapes are artifacts of the preservation
process itself also helps to put landscape values in perspective. One can understand
landscapes by the process and motivation behind their preservation and potential for
future use as much as by physical presence or historical theme. Preserved historic
landscapes are contrived places, whether passively preserved through continual use, or
actively preserved using National Register criteria to guide preservation and
interpretation efforts. 12 Historic industrial sites may be ignored by heritage professionals
because their constant rate of change poses challenges to determinations of integrity, or
become placed under heritage concerns precisely because of their neglect and disuse. In
some places the integrity of the physical resources is often less important than the human
activities that created them, or the ambiance of a particular period of time. Most
developed or commemorated historic industrial places focus on areas with high integrity
or in situ remains. By looking at the way people use values to plan for landscape
protection, a more holistic agenda of managing landscape qualities such as transformation
and process can emerge for preserving historic industrial landscapes.
This approaches the heart of industrial landscape preservation. The fundamental
characteristics of landscape are process and change. This means managing change rather
than managing objects. 13 The landscape is more than just another element of the
resource. It is a way of seeing, perceiving and interacting with place. Conventional ways
12 For an interesting discussion on how to categorize landscapes by their preservation process see Richard Francaviglia,
"Selling Heritage Landscapes," in Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, eds. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z.
Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000): 44-69.
13 Graham Fairclough, "A New Landscape for Cultural Heritage Management: Characterisation as a Management
Tool," in Landscapes Under Pressure: Theory and Practice ofCultural Heritage Research and Preservation, ed.
Ludomir R. Lozny (New York: Springer Science+Business Media Inc., 2006), 58.
9of categorizing and managing historic resources thus may not serve the dynamic
character of the industrial landscape. Landscape preservation should emphasize the
"historic dimension of the present day landscape" as a way to connect people with the
past, present and future. 14 If we preserve places with thought to their present and future
values in addition to their connection with the past, the goal of preservation becomes not
so much "protection of substance but preservation of the past for the future." 15
Preservation is a service, a way to keep history in the public trust for future generations,
and to improve the quality of life for those in the present. Linking historic resources with
future uses thus causes industrial heritage preservation to become a generative process of
"resource building" rather than resource conservation. 16
For historic industrial landscapes, this means accepting the landscape as a living
entity. Planning for landscape evolution and instituting maintenance practices that guide
and harmonize change become central to protecting both the fabric and the value of the
heritage landscape. 17 In Europe, the ecomuseum has taken on this role, which involves
the whole of a territory (rather than a special district) and includes all features, ways of
life, and landscapes. In the United States, the emerging concept of heritage areas has
started to address this issue on a regional scale by integrating private, local, regional and
federal stakeholders into a coalition that work together to define their own preservation
14 Fairlclough, 63.
15 Kobylinski, 221.
16 Judith Alfrey and Tim Putnam, The Industrial Heritage: Managing resources and uses (London: Routledge, 1992),
70.
17 Fairclough, 59.
10
goals, themes, and practices. Incorporating value systems into landscape preservation
provides a platform for preservation to truly serve the changing nature of historic
industrial resources, their users, and ultimately, the public trust.
Guiding Values
This thesis aims to incorporate the multiple values, practices and potentials described
above into a dynamic understanding of how to protect and preserve the historic industrial
landscape. Comparing values described in statutory criteria with values driving actual
preservation practice on the ground illustrates where values overlap, where they differ,
and ultimately, how they can be better integrated into preservation practice. Not all
values or practices can be discussed in a single study; therefore, the conceptual
framework for this study has been limited to the following principles:
• That historic industrial landscapes are protected. Though protection constitutes a
fundamental value that runs through all preservation approaches and all levels of
management, motivations arise for different reasons that can impact the level and
quality of landscape preservation.
• That there is a purpose to their protection. Preservation for preservation's sake is
never the answer for protecting an historic landscape. Preservation should be
generative, a service for enhancing the present and future meaning of a place.
Preservation should balance stakeholder values to provide some benefit to the
larger community, be it educational, economic, or social. For most sites this
means that they are protected and interpreted as useful places that connect people
11
with the past, present and future through the historic dimension of the
contemporary landscape.
• That they reveal the layers of history. This means identifying and interpreting the
landscape characteristics of process, time, change and space, rather than just
focusing on a particular historical period or architectural aesthetic.
• That they are managed as cultural landscapes, not as isolated sites and objects.
This means planning comprehensively, as well as recognizing that actions of the
present influence future preservation efforts and experiences of the landscape.
These principles provide a general framework for how to look at historic industrial
sites as more than a collection of artifacts and objects from the very beginning of the
preservation process. The stakeholders in industrial heritage, from government officials
and historic preservation professionals to amateur archaeologists and local communities
concerned about the history and quality of place, have been speaking parallel languages
for too long. Incorporating the values of inc1usivity, service, comprehensiveness, and
change necessary for the preservation of cultural landscapes could be the beginning of a
new, mutual comprehension. Historic industrial landscapes are dynamic places; their
preservation should also be a dynamic process.
Thesis Organization
Following the introductory chapter, Chapter II describes the methodological
framework directing the analysis of values and management strategies described in the
study. Chapter III outlines the definitions, development, and methodological and
12
theoretical guidelines behind existing cultural landscape preservation and industrial
heritage preservation practices. Understanding this context is essential for understanding
the values associated with approaching industrial heritage sites as cultural landscapes.
Chapter IV narrows this focus towards preservation of mining landscapes in the
American West, illustrating how the concepts discussed in Chapters II and III apply to a
particular type of industrial landscape. Historic mining sites leave extensive impacts on
the landscape, both dramatic and subtle, that embody the multiple modes of preservation
practice and values discussed in this study.
Chapter V introduces and discusses four case studies that illustrate the contrasts
and similarities between the preservation approaches and values identified in the
discussions of the previous chapters. Although many of the concepts discussed will
apply to industrial preservation in general, all of the examples have been limited to the
mining industry and its associated processes. The cases include Kennecott National
Historic Landmark in Alaska, Bodie State Historic Park in California, Tonopah Historic
Mining Park in Nevada, and The Argo Gold Mill and Museum in Colorado. The sites
were chosen to illustrate industrial site preservation at various levels of management,
from National and State to non-profit and private, respectively.
Using the concepts, themes, and categories discussed in the previous sections,
Chapter VI compares and analyzes how cultural landscape preservation relates to present
preservation approaches at the historic mining sites described in Chapter V. The chapter
examines the success or challenge of expressing landscape characteristics at each place,
13
how landscape values have been addressed, and whether these measures are appropriate
depending on the structure and management history of the site.
Discovering where landscape values diverge and where they overlap ultimately
leads to suggestions in Chapter VII for how to incorporate cultural landscape values in to
present preservation practices at historic mining landscapes in particular, and historic
industrial landscapes in general. The potential outcome of this investigation will help to
establish new criteria for evaluating preservation approaches at industrial heritage sites,
encourage heritage place makers to embrace the cultural landscape approach to
preservation, and provide ideas for how to integrate cultural landscape values into
historic preservation management approaches that move beyond the paradigm of the
artifact towards the creation of dynamic, living sites.
14
CHAPTER II
CREATING THE HERITAGE LANDSCAPE
Objective
The purpose of this study is to provide new ways to approach preservation theory
and management objectives for industrial heritage sites by analyzing existing
mechanisms for the preservation and interpretation of industrial sites through the values
and practices associated with cu1tura11andscape preservation. It is a comparative
approach, synthesizing academic literature, case studies, planning documents, and other
structural, methodological, and interpretive preservation guidelines. Most discussions of
industrial heritage usually refer to the physical remains of places associated with the
industrial past. However, the concept of industrial heritage also includes the activities,
attitudes, meanings, and values associated with the place and industrial practice in
question. A major criticism of industrial heritage studies, and historic preservation
studies in general, is that the studies tend to be descriptive over analyticaL 18 Research
efforts have traditionally focused on the preservation of the historic material as the
method in itself, rather than investigating the complex social webs and processes that
created it. This deficiency can be resolved by focusing on the values and processes of
heritage site development and continuation, providing new criteria for examining the ever
18 Marion Blockley, "Preservation, Restoration and Presentation of the Industrial Heritage: A Case Study of Ironbridge
Gorge," in Managing Historic Sites and Buildings: Reconciling Presentation and Preservation, ed. Gill Chitty and
David Baker (London: Routledge, 1999), 141.
~ -~- ~--- ---~~~-~ ~---------------
15
changing meanings and context of industrial landscapes. Viewing the selected case
studies as specific illustrations of general principles will also make visible those
resources that are typical and representative rather than spectacular and commemorative,
ultimately adding to the depth and complexity of the historic preservation agenda. 19
Value Systems
This project recognizes that heritage is made of multiple values. These values
play out in different ways at different levels of heritage management. While all levels
embody many of the same concerns and values, different values may be given emphasis
or guide preservation decisions at different levels of involvement. Kerr and Le Blanc
identify ranges of values according to broad levels of organization. Le Blanc divides
these into the categories of individual, family, community, region or country, and
world. 20 What people choose to preserve and pass on to future generations depends on
where they situate themselves in this hierarchy. Kerr describes values as they relate to
particular stakeholders, from native people to the archaeological community to the
National government and world community.21 In general, value systems can be broken
down in the following way:
• Common Values: These values are the primary values ascribed to heritage places
in most preservation and heritage literature across organizational levels, including
19 Blockley, 151.
20Le Blanc, 72.
21 Alastair Kerr, "Constructing Values and Authenticity at Sgang Gwaay, World Heritage Site," in New Views on
Authenticity and Integrity in the World Heritage a/the Americas, ed. Dr. Francisco Javier Lopez Morales (San Miguel
de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico: ICOMOS, August 24-26, 2005), 77.
16
aesthetic, social or communal, historical, symbolic, economic, educational, and
evidential or scientific values.
• NationaVWorld: This level of heritage interaction is most often concerned with
both the importance and integrity of physical remains and the meanings and
cultural traditions at the national and universal leveL While explicitly concerned
with respecting the diversity of heritage, this level focuses on the protection and
conservation of places with outstanding universal historical value that can provide
places for commemoration, scientific discovery, and general cultural stewardship.
Values are usually assigned through listing criteria, published guidelines, and
government legislation.
• RegionaVState: This level is also concerned with commemoration, conservation
and stewardship of places with outstanding historical value in their regional
context. However, many preservation activities at the regional level are also
aimed at serving the needs of their constituents through activities such as
recreation, education, and economic development. There is a focus on service as
well as the protection of historical fabric. Values are assigned through established
criteria and guidelines, but also by the present needs and future use of citizens.
• LocaVCommunity: Preservation in this sphere tends to combine preserving
places of local historical value with meeting the economical, recreational, and
educational needs of the community. In addition to service, preservation is
strongly linked with forming a local identity and sense of place. Values are
17
assigned by community needs and desires; official criteria and guidelines become
a mechanism rather than a fundamental value.
• Family/Personal: Heritage values at this level can be as variable as the
individuals themselves. Heritage preservation can become concerned with the
observance of cultural traditions, the experience and enjoyment of place, and the
relationship of personal history and identity to larger historical contexts. Values
are assigned by personal experience, memory and meaning; official criteria and
guidelines are often an afterthought.
The range ofvalues influencing preservation practice thus varies widely across the
spectrum of organizational participation. Values associated with conventional
preservation practices such as commemoration and integrity tend to have a stronger
presence at the larger national and regional organizational levels, whereas the
stewardship of integrity often becomes less important than conserving identity and
memory at the local and personal levels. Nevertheless, many values overlap
organizational levels, creating some continuity among value systems. Figure 2.1
illustrates how these value systems tend to coincide.
18
Valucs
Lncl
Nati()llal/W()r1d
]{cgiollal/Statc
J .ocal/COllllllllllity
j;allli k /Pcrs( lila I
Figure 2.1. Dominant values within preservation systems. Most levels also attend to aesthetic,
historical, social, educational, and economic values, though the degree varies.
Cultural Landscape Values
Though all values and levels overlap to some extent, this study proposes that all
levels can be better integrated by incorporating cultural landscape values into their
preservation practices. Cultural landscape values aim to treat the heritage making
process in a holistic manner. Like all values, cultural landscape values are constructions
of a particular time, place, and heritage agenda. The descriptions used in this study have
grown out of the literature and understanding of preservation processes gained through
this research project. Nevertheless, the primary values associated with landscape, such as
dynamism, unity, continuity and process, can provide an umbrella for incorporating
19
multiple heritage values. In order to ground these concepts in the context of current
preservation practice, this study will present landscape characteristics adapted from
Fairclough as a way to further describe landscape values. 22 Though each characteristic is
treated as its own discrete unit, the characteristics depend on and influence each other.
They include:
• Process: Historical processes combine space and time to produce change.
Processes are interactions of perception and action with the physical world.
Values and understandings change as old processes die and new processes take
their place. Preservation is just another process affecting the landscape.
Preservation should aim to preserve evidence of historical processes as well as
integrate present and future processes in order to allow people to read the layers
of their history
• Space: Spatial patterns and the use of space tell us about past human activity and
provide the basis for future activity. This characteristic tends to dominate current
preservation discourse; however, its definition must be expanded. Space is not
the primary characteristic of place; space provides the physical location for the
expression of value, not value itself.
• Time: The effects of time are always evident in the landscape; objects and
activities grow, shift, change, and disappear. Time affects not only the physical
environment, but perception of landscape. Associations and values ascribed to a
particular place ebb and flow with the passage of time.
22 Fairclough, 68.
20
• Change: The essence of landscape is change. The legacy of change is what
makes a landscape distinctive and valued. Landscape preservation is about
protecting and managing the results of change, which includes attention to all
historical periods that influenced the transformation of the landscape. This also
includes planning for future change, as contemporary and future uses are part of
the continuity of the landscape story.
These four characteristics provide a way to integrate the consideration of values into
the framework typically used in the United States for considering historic landscapes.
Described in detail in the National Register Bulletin 30: Guidelines for Evaluating and
Documenting Rural Historic Landscapes, this approach uses II landscape characteristics
that cover a wide range of concepts, dividing them into two broad categories ofprocesses
and components. 23 Though fairly comprehensive and useful for documenting,
categorizing and evaluating the physical traces of the historic landscape, these
characteristics pose a danger of being used purely descriptively. The processes and
components described in the literature can explain interrelationships of landscape
elements in the past, but often fail to articulate what they mean for the present and the
future. The four characteristics of process, space, time and change move beyond the
empirical focus of the characteristics described in National Register Bulletin 30 towards
the expression of the dynamic nature of a historic landscape and its potential for future
23 Linda Flint McClelland, J. Timothy Keller, Genevieve P. Keller and Robert Z. Melnick, National Register Bulletin
30: Guidelines/or Evaluating and Documenting Rural Historic Landscapes (Washington, DC: Preservation Assistance
Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1999),3-6.
21
use and protection. Figure 2.2 illustrates how the various characteristics relate to each
other.
NR Bulletin 30 Cimino
p
r
o
c
e
s
s
e
s
Land Uses and Activities
Patterns of Spatial Organization
Response to the Natural Environment
Cultural Traditions
\
\
--,.--
\
\
\
\
\
Process
Space
Time
Change
Change
Space
Process
, Time
Archaeological Sites
Clusters
Small-scale elements
Circulation Networks
Boundary Demarcation
Vegetation Related to Land Use ......-----3a'
Buildings, Structures, and Objects
C
o
ill
P
o
n
e
n
t
s
Primary Association - - - - - Secondary Association
Figure 2.2. Associations between the 11 landscape characteristics published by the Secretary of
the Interior and the four landscape characteristics identified by the author. The 11 characteristics
currently in use correspond to some of the characteristics proposed in this study; however, they
lean heavily towards space and process over time and change, potentially excluding some
dynamic values of the heritage landscape.
22
Application
Following in the tradition of Kerr and Le Blanc, this study will examine four historic
industrial landscapes at the National, State, Non-profit, and Private level of management
in order to illustrate the different values that stakeholders at each level bring to the
industrial landscape preservation process. Each case study will identify whether and how
the landscape characteristics of process, space, time, and change have been addressed by
the preservation philosophy guiding management at the site. Factors considered include:
• Process: What processes are evident at the sites, both historical and current?
• Space: What physical evidence do the sites preserve/interpret? Do they include
landscape and context or just artifacts?
• Time: How do the sites express time? Is it preserved to one moment, or are all
periods represented?
• Change: How do the sites express the changes made over time? How to they
plan for future change?
Analyzing the expression of these characteristics indicates how past and present
values interact in these places, how current preservation practices include or exclude
these values, and how cultural landscape values contribute to the management of the
sites. This study does not attempt to discover or discuss all values present at all sites.
Rather, this study attempts to determine whether a particular set of values, what this study
calls cultural landscape values, are evident at the chosen sites. Cultural landscape values
are particularly important because by their dynamic nature, they allow for the expression
23
of the other values that comprise the heritage making process. For industrial landscapes
especially, values have been focused on what can be expressed materially. While
materiality is expressive of landscape character, landscape character is expressive of
larger narratives. This is where preservation of industrial remains, and mining landscapes
in particular, tend to stop. The tendency for preservation of these places is to document
and record artifacts, buildings, and technology instead of exploring the processes and
meanings that a wider understanding of the landscape can provide. The actions and
perceptions people assign to the landscape over time creates changes in the physical
representation of the landscape. Ignoring these relationships obscures the true nature of
an industrial place, and hence, its true value.
24
CHAPTER III
CULTURAL LANDSCAPES, INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE,
AND PRESERVATION PRACTICE
Cultural Landscapes as Heritage Resources
Cultural landscapes are managed as cultural resources, which includes following
established criteria for identification, evaluation and treatment. Cultural landscape
preservation occurs at many scales at both the local and national levels, from grassroots
activism, to protected national parks and national reserves, to multifaceted, tourism-
oriented heritage corridors. Each approach has a distinct philosophy and agenda. For
instance, landscapes in the national parks tend to be restored to particular states or
periods of time at the expense of current land use practice, while National Reserves tend
to include people as part of the overall environment and encourage continued land use
practices. 24 In contrast, heritage corridors and community-driven approaches to
preservation tend to focus on economic development and other community benefits.
While having these widely varying approaches allows for flexibility in the preservation
process and recognition of various cultural values, they can also be treated as mutually
exclusive.
24 Arnold R Alanen, "Considering the Ordinary: Vernacular Landscapes in Small Towns and Rural Areas" in
Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, eds. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2000), 131.
25
Industrial landscapes are particularly affected by disjointed preservation processes
because of their fragmentary and complicated nature. In this context, a holistic approach
that includes values-based cultural landscape preservation provides an opportunity to
broaden the horizons of traditional preservation practice at these sites. The principle
strength oflandscape studies are its inclusiveness ofboth materiality and perception.
Tracing the various modes of describing and attributing meaning to historic industrial
cultural landscapes will help to clarify the position of cultural landscape preservation, and
industrial heritage preservation in particular, as they are presently considered. This
chapter examines the cultural landscape as an historic entity and how the complexities of
industrial landscapes have been reconciled with current landscape preservation practice in
order to better understand where attention to values may be incorporated into industrial
landscape preservation procedures.
Cultural Landscape Preservation
The definition of the term "cultural landscape" is as ephemeral as the landscape
itself. It has been described succinctly as, "everywhere human activities have affected
the land,,,25 poetically as, "our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values,
our aspirations, and even our fears, in tangible, visible form,,,26 or more complexly, as the
"physical, ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural patterns and processes [that are]
spatially extended, dynamic, and complex systems in which heterogeneity, nonlinearity,
25 Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick, "Introduction," in Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, eds.
Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 3.
26 Pierce F. Lewis, "Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene," in The Interpretation of
Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, ed. D.W. Meinig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 12.
26
and contingency are the norm.,,27 In essence, a cultural landscape is the interaction of
people and their surroundings in all of its complexity. The official definition of a cultural
landscape in the preservation literature established by the National Park Service is a
geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or
domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person or
exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values. 28 Cultural landscapes thus embody historic
landscapes, and are composed of character-defining features that contribute to the
landscape's physical appearance as it has evolved through time. This includes not only
the creation and past use of a particular landscape, but the current appearance and future
potential ascribed to contemporary landscapes, including landscape preservation. The
National Park Service further divides historic cultural landscapes into the four following
categories:
1) Historic Designed Landscape - a landscape that was consciously designed or
created by a landscape professional according to design principles, or an amateur
working in a recognized style or tradition. Associations with significant people,
trends or developments in landscape architecture, as well as aesthetic values, are
common elements of an historic designed landscape.
2) Historic Vernacular Landscape - a landscape that evolved through the
activities of the people who used or occupied the landscape. Associations with
the physical, biological, and cultural character of the everyday lives of people and
their functions in the landscape are part of the significance of vernacular cultural
landscapes. Both single and collective properties can embody this type of
landscape.
27 Susan Calafate Boyle, "Natural and Cultural Resources: the Protection ofVernacular Landscapes," in Cultural
Landscapes: Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice, ed. Richard Longstreth (MiImeapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 151.
28 Charles A. Birnbaum, Preservation Brief36: Protecting Cultural Landscapes: Planning, Treatment, and
Management ofHistoric Landscapes (Washington, DC: Preservation Assistance Division, National Park Service, u.s.
Department of the Interior, 1994),1.
27
3) Historic Site - a landscape significant for its association with historic events,
activities, or people
4) Ethnographic Landscape - a landscape containing a variety of natural and
cultural resources that associated groups of people define as heritage. Religious
sacred sites, geological features, and subsistence grounds are examples of
ethnographic landscapes. 29
Countries throughout the world have also recognized the value of cultural
landscapes and have enacted their own preservation programs, some of which have
preceded those in the United States. Many of these programs take their cues from
definitions and criteria established in 1992 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for evaluating a property's potential as a World
Heritage Site. While the charter has been revised over the years, the definition of the
cultural landscape runs parallel to those of the National Park Service: cultural landscapes
reflect the evolution of human relationships with the natural environment through time.
In this framework, cultural landscapes are categorized in three ways:
1) Clearly Defined Landscape - a landscape designed and created intentionally
by man. This embraces garden and parkland landscapes constructed for
aesthetic reasons which are often (but not always) associated with religious or
other monumental buildings and ensembles.
2) Organically Evolved Landscape - a landscape that results from an initial
social, economic, administrative, and/or religious imperative and has
developed its present form by association with and in response to its natural
environment. Such landscapes reflect that process of evolution in their form
and component features. Sub-categories of organically evolved landscapes
include relict orJossillandscapes in which the evolutionary process came to
some kind of end but is still visible in material form; and continuing
landscapes which retain active social roles in contemporary society that are
closely associated with the traditional way of life.
29 Birnbaum, 1.
28
3) Associative Cultural Landscape - a landscape that exhibits powerful
religious, artistic, or cultural associations of natural elements rather than
material cultural evidence, which may be insignificant or even absent. 30
While many of the definitions attempt inclusivity, landscapes are constantly
evolving, dynamic entities that are difficult to codify. In addition to official descriptions,
many people living and working in what could be designated as heritage landscapes often
have their own perception of what the landscape represents. For example, many
aboriginal peoples throughout the world view the landscape as synonymous with oral and
cultural tradition, with little separation between nature and culture, past and future. 31 In
the American West, many landscapes once defined by the mining or agricultural
industries are now valued as a places of recreation. Scholars, preservation professionals,
politicians, and local communities are just some of the stakeholders that bring a variety of
values to the creation and preservation of the cultural landscape. Navigating differing
views and agendas is an important part of reading the clues to culture in the landscape,
and is necessary for making informed decisions on how to better preserve, restore,
protect, or interpret their meaning.
Cultural landscape studies do not fall into a single paradigm, but rather tend to be
characterized by the convergence of many "parent" disciplines such as geography,
history, the design professions, and cultural criticism that have an interest in or elements
30 UNESCO, World Heritage Convention, Operational Guidelinesfor the Implementation of the World Heritage
Convention (Paris, UNESCO, 1996).
31 Susan Buggey and Nora MitcheII, "Cultural Landscapes: Venues for Community-based Conservation," in Cultural
Landscapes: Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice, ed. Richard Longstreth (Minneapolis:
University ofMinnesota Press, 2008), 169.
29
associated with landscape. 32 The term "cultural landscape" was first introduced by
geographer Carl Sauer in the 1920s. 33 Sauer defined cultural landscapes as the place
where nature and culture meet. This early scholarship viewed landscapes as material,
that is, places that could be observed, mapped, and analyzed to reveal clues about natural
and human activity. This "morphological method" was extended from the natural
environment to buildings by Fred Kniffen and to folk culture by Henry Glassie in the
mid-20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, James Brinkerhoff Jackson assembled and
expanded many of these ideas into a more clearly defined genre of cultural landscape
studies, promoting his views through an interdisciplinary publication called Landscapes.
Jackson challenged the primacy of the visual and material aspects of the landscape,
placing great value on finding meaning in the landscape through other sensory
experiences. He also emphasized the importance of ordinary, everyday landscapes as
avenues to deeper understanding of the meaning of place and culture.
The influence Jackson and his colleagues saw a shift during the 1970s away from
the material focus of landscape towards landscape as a process or text that is composed of
multiple meanings shaped by the observer. As Meinig describes, landscape is "composed
of not only what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads.,,34 In other words,
individuals might have multiple meanings for the same "text" or landscape, and at the
32 Jay Appleton, "The Integrity ofthe Landscape Movement," in Understanding Ordinmy Landscapes, eds. Paul Groth
and Todd w. Bressi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 190; Alanen and Melnick, 15.
33 CarlO. Sauer, "The Morphology of Landscape," University of California Publications in Geography 2, no. 2,
Berkeley, 1925, in Land and Life: A Selection from the Writings ofear! Ortwin Sauer, ed. John Leighley (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1963), 315-50.
34 D.W. Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene," in The Interpretation ofOrdinary
Landscapes, ed. D.W. Meinig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979),35.
30
same time be part of a "textual community" of commonly held understandings. 35 Meinig
eloquently illustrates this in an essay where the same scene is variously described in
terms of its perceived values. In this exercise, landscape becomes a suffocating or
freeing wilderness (nature), mankind's Eden (habitat), the stage for human evolution and
prosperity (artifact and wealth), and a teacher of science and a harbor of ills (system and
problem). It is also a physical record of our past (history) that embodies our fundamental
philosophies (ideology). It is a particularity (place) that may have a visual and visceral
essence (aesthetic). 36 The argument, then, is that landscape is never singular, and
understanding the complexity of meaning inherent in these overlapping values is essential
to understanding the landscape. By the 1980s and 1990s, the growing literature on
environmental justice influenced the view of landscapes as material representations of
discourse, or in other words, as "instruments of cultural power.,,3? As human creations,
whether physical or in our minds, landscapes cannot be separated from cultural, political,
and economic agendas. Contemporary cultural landscape studies follow all of these
paths, continually attempting to integrate and synthesize nature with culture, materiality
with meaning, and perception with process.
These ideas have been translated into various acts of legislation, guidelines, and
mission statements of heritage preservation organizations. Though the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966 does not define cultural landscapes as historic resources in
35 James Duncan and Nancy Duncan, "(Re)reading the Landscape," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6
(1988): 117-118. .
36 Meinig, 33-48.
37 Julie Riesenweber summarizing Stephen Daniels in, "Landscape Preservation and Cultural Geography," in Cultural
Landscapes: Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice, ed. Richard Longstreth (Minneapolis:
University ofMinnesota Press, 2008), 27.
31
particular, the National Park Service has published guidelines for the protection and
treatment of cultural landscapes, as well as established programs such as the Historic
American Landscapes Survey (HALS) dedicated to the systematic documentation of
historic American landscapes. 38 Organizations such as the Alliance for Historic
Landscape Preservation have been established as interdisciplinary professional forums
dedicated to the preservation and conservation of historic landscapes. Perhaps most
influential was the revision of UNESCO's Convention concerning the Protection o/the
World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1992 to include cultural landscapes as a primary
cultural resource. This act provided the first intemationallegal framework for protecting
cultural landscapes, as well as recognized the associative values of landscapes and
landscape features, the importance of celebrating living landscapes for providing
continuity with the past, and the importance of protecting biological and cultural diversity
within cultural landscapes.
Despite this evolution in landscape literature, criticism, and implementation, the
preservation professions have struggled to move beyond the material definition of
landscape. Cultural landscape preservation is repeatedly criticized for relying too closely
on remnant physical traces, oversimplifying the complex and dynamic processes of
understanding and evaluating places and their meanings. 39 This is especially true for
38 See in particular National Register Bulletin 30, Guidelines/or Evaluating and Documenting Rural Historic
Landscapes; National Register Bulletin 18, How to Evaluate and Nominate Designed Historic Landscapes; and
Preservation Brief36: Protecting Cultural Landscapes: Planning, Treatment, and Management 0.[Historic
Landscapes, all published by the National Park Service.
39 Richard Longstreth, "Introduction: the Challenges of Cultural Landscape for Preservation," in Cultural Landscapes:
Balancing Nature andHeritage in Preservation Practice, ed. Richard Longstreth, (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2008), 1; Robert Z. Melnick, "Strangers in a Strange Land; Dilemmas ofLandscape Integrity" (paper
presented at "Multiple Views; Multiple Meanings," Goucher College, Townsend, MD, March 12-13, 1999),2-3.
32
historic industrial landscapes, which experience not only constant physical change
through the evolution of technological processes, but also changing relationships to the
people who use and inhabit them. The difficulty of understanding and articulating the
perceptions and values associated with industrial landscape preservation consequently
illustrate the limits and complexities of current landscape preservation practice.
Industrial Heritage
The remains of industrial activity have left a profound impact on both the physical
and psychological landscape of modem culture. From the earliest attempts at resource
extraction to modem manufacturing processes, human manipulation and dependence on
the natural world for technological purposes has been a central aspect of human activity.
Industrial heritage consists of the physical remains and memories of places and people
engaged in these industrial processes. The primary body charged with advising
UNESCO, the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage
(ICCTIH), defines industrial heritage as "the remains of industrial culture which are of
historical, technological, social, architectural, or scientific value.,,4o This can include
buildings, technology, and landscapes that reflect both physical and social processes
associated with industry. There has been some debate on whether industrial heritage
studies should be concerned with a range of human activities or a particular time
period. 41 Though industrial activity extends from prehistory, most industrial heritage
40 International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage and the International Committee on
Monuments and Sites, The Nizhny Tagil Charter for the Industrial Heritage, July 2003.
41 Neil Cossons, The BP Book ofIndustrial Archaeology (North Pomfret, VT: David & Charles, 1975), 16.
33
studies focus on the period beginning with the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th
century. The large-scale economic development that followed this period led to the
creation of the industrial icons and standardized industrial procedures that dominate
contemporary industria11andscapes and imaginations.
Industrial heritage received widespread recognition in mid-20th century as, for
arguably the first time, the growth of pride in past industrial achievement began to
counterbalance the adverse social consequences with which it had for so long been
associated. 42 Centralized in Britain, activists mobilized a widespread effort to record 18th
and 19th century industrial relicts before their destruction by new development. Taking
up the banner of archaeology, Michael Rix published the first treatise on "industrial
archaeology" in an article in The Amateur Historian in 1955, emphasizing the need to
record and preserve industrial remains before they were demolished. 43 Standardized
recording procedures soon followed, established by the Council for British Archaeology
Industrial Archaeological Research Committee. 44 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s,
preservation by recordation remained the accepted investigative technique for threatened
historic industrial sites.
Industrial heritage studies did not have a major presence in the United States until
the 1960s when the National Park Service Office of Archaeology and Historic
Preservation instituted the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) as a
companion program to the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) program of the
42 Cossons, 18.
43 Cossons, 19.
44 Cossons, 25.
34
1930s. Closely associated with the engineering community, the HAER is primarily
concerned with recording structures and features with a technological emphasis,
including examples of structural engineering such as bridges, or industrial machinery and
other operational systems such as power generation. In 1971 scholars and preservation
professionals formed the Society for Industrial Archaeology, which has since become the
primary forum for industrial archaeological research and advocacy in North America and
overseas. The Society's mission is to promote the study, appreciation, and preservation
of the physical remains of the industrial and technological past through lobbying efforts,
publishing handbooks and journals, and keeps a register of professionals of industrial
history. While taking its cues from the industrial heritage preservation movement in
Britain, American industrial archaeology was different in that it initially had fewer bases
in the groundswell of popular opinion and volunteerism; its main members instead came
from a variety public and private organizations such as the National Park Service and
professional engineering societies. 45
The rapid growth and popularity of industrial archaeology as a discipline has also
presented its main criticism, for despite the participation of trained professionals, it is
often viewed as more of an enthusiast rather than an academic pursuit. The field itself
developed generally outside of traditional archaeological circles; it was not until the
1970s that professionals in industrial history started to move beyond architectural
recordation to apply established archaeological techniques such as excavation and
stratigraphic analysis. To this day there remain few official academic programs in
45 Anna Stonn, Hope and Rust: Reinterpreting the industrial place in the late 20th century, Stockholm Papers in the
History and Philosophy of Technology, TRITA-HOT-2057 (Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology, 2008),42.
35
industrial archaeology, and most of those are focused in Western Europe and the United
States.46 Most historic industrial sites continue to be administered by museums,
enthusiast groups, or private industrial companies themselves rather than large
institutions, and much academic industrial archaeology tends to be incidental to
archaeological investigations conducted for other purposes. While this may be a
symptom of the conflicts between academic and professional archaeological goals and
activities in general, it nevertheless has had profound consequences for industrial heritage
protection, which usually receives secondary status to more established thematic
research.
In the past 20 years, professionals studying industrial heritage have recognized the
need to encompass a wider variety of resources and practices in order to address this
imbalance. The sheer scale and spatial complexity of the industrial landscape
necessitates a comprehensive approach. While the most prominent features in most
industrial landscapes are the remains of the manufacturing process, such as factory
buildings, furnaces, and warehouses, equally important but less visually striking, are the
associated transportation and communication systems such as rails, canals, and telegraph
systems. Many remnants of industrial landscapes are not architectural at all, but
topographical features and land use patterns. Waste and other discarded products remain
in the form of pollution and slag piles, or may be recycled for new uses that may not
reflect their original context. Subsidence and quarry scars may be the only indication that
any human activities took place in some areas. It must also be remembered that much of
46 Storm, 45.
36
the industrial landscape was temporary to begin with - stacks of raw or finished goods
were transported elsewhere, workers gathered informally for lunch.47 What survives in
the dormant industrial landscape today is thus often very different from the active
industrial landscape of the past. Industry constantly transforms itself as new technology
replaces the old. In mining districts, for example, underground features are dangerous
and inaccessible, indirect evidence of industrial activity such as tailings piles or
subsidence can be obscured by reclamation activities, and features are deliberately
destroyed in the interest of public safety. Certain types of landscape evidence may be
over or underrepresented depending on the history of the place. This makes industrial
landscapes difficult to study, as industrial remains are voluminous but incomplete.
Approaching these resources as cultural landscapes rather than isolated sites can lead to
understanding that includes the multiple features and values embodied in a particular
place.
Unfortunately, industrial heritage studies often fall short of interpreting the entire
landscape by devoting energy only to the identification of landscape features and
characteristics associated with particular industrial development, rather than how a
landscape changes over time and space. 48 Thus the landscape is not usually viewed as
the primary resource, but rather as the setting for the objects within it. As early as 1982,
critics acknowledged the need to pay more attention to the landscape to balance the
47 David R. Meyer, "The new industrial order," in The Making ofthe American Landscape, ed. Michael P. Conzen
(London: Unwin Hyman, Inc., 1990),249; Barrie Trinder, The Making ofthe Industrial Landscape (London: lM.
Dent & Sons, 1982), 9-10.
48 Judith Alfrey and Catherine Clark, The Landscape ofIndustry: Patterns ofchange in the Ironbridge Gorge (London:
Routledge, 1993),3.
37
concentration on the architectural and technical aspects of industry. 49 Even so, industrial
heritage studies, like so many preservation endeavors, tend to focus on the exceptions,
not the rule. The emphasis on original material or visual integrity may not be appropriate
for industrial sites where alterations and adaptations are a regular part of its evolution. If
patterns of change are essential features of industrial activity, treating industrial
landscapes as "static entities with a single purpose" is more hindrance than help in the
preservation process. 50 Investigating the physical evidence of past industry should
demonstrate the processes of industrialization and the accompanying social and cultural
effects, in addition to describing features and technologies themselves. Reading the
landscape should be an integrative process towards understanding industrial process,
time, and change as manifested in the historic landscape.
Industrial Landscape Preservation
Development
Industrial landscape preservation is governed in the United States by the same
guidelines published by the Secretary of the Interior as those for cultural landscapes.
Industrial landscapes are most often defined as vernacular landscapes because of their
functional nature, though some designed landscapes have been recognized, such as
company town complexes, for example. However, even these often fall into the
vernacular category because ofthe functional rather than academic principles behind
their design. Historic industrial landscapes are also a common theme in the preservation
49 Trinder, 2-3.
50 Alfrey and Clark, 113.
38
of rural historic landscapes, again due to their vernacular nature and often remote
geographic locations. Thus, industrial landscapes have been addressed by the landscape
preservation literature in a general way that conforms with existing preservation
guidelines. Unfortunately, this practice often conflicts with the reality of the historic
industrial place.
This conflict is one of the most highlighted criticisms of cultural landscape
protection in general, and industrial landscape preservation in particular. Many
professionals argue the very structure of guidelines such as the National Register criteria
for evaluating historic places is more hindrance than aid for historic landscapes because
of its focus on the physicality of a site rather than the historical values or dynamic
processes that make up the site. 51 Rooted in preservation practices that have grown out
of a curatorial approach for protecting architecture and artifacts, the criteria state that a
property must be a district, site, building, structure or object associated with an event or
person that made a significant contribution to history, embodies an exceptional example
of a particular aesthetic style or type of construction, or has potential to yield important
information about history (as through archaeological investigations). 52 This focus on
discrete, object-based criteria allows little room for the complex definitions of nature,
culture, and perception that embody a cultural landscape. The inherent biases in this list-
based management structure affects what heritage is preserved, and by extension, what is
51 Catherine Howett, "Integrity as a Value in Cultural Landscape Preservation," in Preserving Cultural Landscapes in
America, eds. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000),188-89;
Randall Mason, "Management for Cultural Landscape Preservation: Insights from Australia," in Cultural Landscapes:
Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice, ed. Richard Longstreth (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2008), 182; Melnick, "Strangers," 9.
52 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, How to Apply the National Register Criteria For Evaluation
(Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1990).
39
valued as heritage, in a self-perpetuating circle. Listing depends on the time, effort, and
interests ofpeople. The heritage listed and therefore preserved is based on the values of
those doing the listing, thus "professional' or academic values often receive attention at
the expense of other values. As King points out, "Lists are useful tools in the
management of those things that are easily listed, but we need to be careful not the let
them become the be-all and end-all of cultural heritage management.,,53
Perhaps more important for purposes of this study, the criteria also state for a
historic property to have significance it must retain a certain amount of integrity through
seven distinct attributes: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and
association. 54 While the literature recognizes that evaluation of integrity is a subjective
process, the description of each aspect is consistently ascribed to a discrete physical
representation, even when considering the more abstract values of feeling and
association. Of course, physical remains, including any natural and cultural features of a
cultural landscape, are a vital part of landscape history, character, and meaning.
However, allowing the integrity of those features takes precedence over other historical
and contemporary values puts severe limits on a site by confining it to the specific period
represented by its physicality and ignoring the concept of layering, or "landscape as
palimpsest.,,55 If integrity means "wholeness," as Howett proposes, then the concept of
53 King, 247.
54 U.S. Department of the Interior, How to Apply the National Register Criteria/or Evaluation, 45.
55 Howett, 188.
40
unity, which would accept and integrate change over time, may be lost in the current way
preservationists apply the criteria of integrity to historic places. 56
In an attempt to correct this deficiency, defmitions of the cu1tura11andscape have
been expanded in the preservation literature to address continuity through time and
include additiona11andscape characteristics and values as elements of integrity. As
described in Chapter II, the National Park Service has expanded its description of
historica11andscape features to include multiple "landscape characteristics" including
land use activities and patterns, cultural traditions, and responses to the natural
environment, in addition to patterns of spatial organization, circulation networks, and the
usual buildings, sites and objects. In England, preservation professionals use Historic
Landscape Characterization as a primary landscape evaluation method.
Methodologically, it consists of a spatial modeling technique that studies patterns ofland
cover and land use to explain broad landscape contexts. 57 More broadly it is an
interpretive technique that encourages generalization, synthesis, and the incorporation of
multiple constituencies in the heritage management process. 58 The Canadian system uses
the concept of "commemorative integrity" to guide its landscape preservation decisions.
Commemorative integrity describes the health or wholeness of an historic site rather than
just its individual components. In order to possess commemorative integrity, a site must
adequately symbolize its importance, effectively communicate this importance to the
56 Howett, 186.
57 S.c. Turner, Devon Historical Landscape Characterization, Phase 1 Report, Prepared for the Devon County Council
Historic Environment Service and English Heritage (January 2005).
58 Fairclough, 61, 65.
41
public, and respect all heritage values of those parties whose decisions or actions affect
the site. 59 Finally, Australian authorities characterize landscapes based on guidelines
outlined in the Burra Charter,60 which aims to integrate values-centered preservation
theory and emphasizes an inclusive planning process. The complex nature of the cultural
landscape has thus challenged heritage managers to reexamine the values and
effectiveness of management strategies assigned to particular heritage areas. In general,
most large government agencies involved in preservation activities have acknowledged
that preservation planning for cultural landscapes involves a broad array of dynamic
variables that require a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach. As Mason states,
[M]useological and other curatorial theories of preservation fail us when it comes
to preserving landscapes since the ideas are geared toward codifying meaning and
enforcing an ideal, constant state. Preservation of landscapes will not, therefore,
flow simply from the greater understanding of them or from more sophisticated
documentation methods, or from application of traditional architectural
conservation principles. 61
Preservation criteria must be expanded when applied to cultural landscapes. Viewing
landscapes as more than material can allow both heritage managers and heritage
consumers to make connections across time and space, finding a more comprehensive
sense of integrity and significance.
The development of industrial heritage preservation reflects these trends. For
example, industrial archaeology incorporates multi-disciplinary expertise from the fields
59 Le Blanc, 75.
60 The Burra Charter is officially called the "Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation ofPlaces of Cultural
Significance." It was adopted at Burra, Australia in 1979.
61 Mason, 182.
42
oftechnology, history, economics, architecture, social and cultural history, and field
archaeology. Archaeological techniques such as the systematic recording and analysis of
characteristics such as typology, function, materials, and stratigraphy recognize patterns
of change through time and set these patterns in contemporary spatial context. 62 This is
beneficial for studying the landscape, as it necessarily links artifacts and structures with
their wider surroundings. Archaeologists also tend to be concerned with the process and
development of new technologies and building materials that necessitate making
connections across time and space. 63 One cannot understand the evolution of a place
without understanding various periods ofdevelopment, use, and change.
While industrial archaeology and industrial heritage studies are in a unique
position to elaborate, challenge, or add to historical documentary evidence, the tendency
to focus on technological evolution rather than social processes and other cultural values
can actually harm the potential inclusiveness of the endeavor. As Cossons recognized,
"the industrial archaeologist, if he is to have any real understanding of the sites and
artifacts ...must look at the landscape in its entirety. Industrial archaeology is in part a
landscape study, and the industrial archaeologist cannot restrict himself wholly to a
thematic approach.,,64 In addition to technological process or time period, investigation
of historic industrial landscapes must include the economic, political, and social contexts
surrounding industry. Looking at the landscape in this way also humanizes the
62 Theodore Anon Sande, "Industrial Archaeology and the Cause for Historic Preservation in the United States,"
Historical Archaeology II (1977): 40; Alfrey and Clark, 4.
63 Alfrey and Clark, 86.
64 Cossons, 17.
43
landscape. The material evidence of industry is important precisely because few
participants left written records of their experiences that can be revealed in the physical
traces of the past. Taking people out of the artifact equation is detrimental to our full
understanding of industrial history. For example, economic fluctuation instigates
modification and changes in the workplace, struggles occur between management and
labor, and the status of industrial activity sways with the tides of popular opinion.
Nevertheless, topics such as labor history tend to be secondary to discussions of
technological evolution in most industrial archaeological discourse. 65
One attempt at including social processes in industrial heritage preservation has
come in the form of the ecomuseum movement in Western Europe. Ecomuseums take
cues from precedents such as the open air museums in Skansen, Sweden; however, they
aim to preserve cultural remains in situ over large geographical areas rather than curate a
set of specially selected buildings that have been moved or placed on a contrived site.
Perhaps the best example of this is the lronbridge Gorge Museum in England, which
opened in the early 1970s as one of the original open air industrial museums. The
museum covers over 40 hectares and encompasses 10 discrete museum locations,
illustrating the various industries, from manufacturing steel to ceramics, that have
prospered in the region.
Another stated goal of the ecomuseum process is to treat the cultural landscape as
"cultural territory," where contemporary people and issues are viewed as much a part of
the resource as the historical objects or physical landscape. The processes of creating
65 Paul A. Shackel, "Labor's Heritage: Remembering the American Industrial Landscape," Historical Archaeology 38,
no. 4 (2004), 46.
44
community identity, discovery, and connection to the larger landscape become a part of
the museum mission. For instance, the Ecomusee L. Creusot-Montceau-Les-Mines in
France inventoried all cultural resources of the region, whether moveable, immovable,
crafts, documents, stories, or memories. The museum as a political entity only acquired
things that were not owned, threatened, or had no "current use-value" for protection. 66
Everything else remained in the possession of the population and its continued use
encouraged as the best conservation practice, accessible as a kind of "general collection"
of the living landscape. 67 Making connections and celebrating the texture of the entire
social, cultural, and natural network in this way permits the industrial landscape to
incorporate multiple value systems, and recognize the dynamic blend of the old and the
new.
Perception
Despite advances in the practicalities of industrial heritage protection, a prevailing
issue for these places remains the ambiguity of attitudes towards industrialization. Many
view the very concept of industrial heritage as a contradiction in terms because the
practice of heritage preservation grew out of concern for the changes produced by
industry. As early as the beginning of the 18th century, industry had a twofold
reputation. On the one hand, industry represented a heroic subjugation of nature to profit
66 Alfrey and Putnam, 165.
67 Ibid.
45
and order, civilizing the landscape and those who lived within it. 68 On the other, industry
was a tragic development contributing to the pollution, squalor, and other degradation
that accompanied industrial activities and communities. 69 In reality, industrial processes
combined all of these elements, bringing wealth, employment and technological
innovation to many, but often at a high environmental and social cost. Nevertheless, the
dual visions pairing modernity and progress against degradation and loss remain central
to perceptions of the industrial landscape today, and by extension, preservation of the
industrial landscape.
Francaviglia has termed this bipolar nature of romanticizing and criticizing the
industrial landscape "technophilia.,,7o We reject some industrial forms (often the
modern, messy, or commonplace) while finding beauty in those that are temporally and
spatially distant. However, the danger of romanticizing the technological past lies in the
act of ignoring the environmental degradation and human suffering that often
accompanied industrial processes. 71 Adaptive re-use, while often the best possible or
most-likely scenario for preserving industrial sites, usually focuses on the architectural
qualities of a place, modifying and cleansing the surroundings to make palatable to a new
generation of users for different purposes. Usually billed as "regeneration" these projects
are intended to instill a pride of place and improve the quality of life for residents in post-
68 Trinder, 96-100.
69 Trinder, 93-96.
70 Francavig1ia, "Boomtowns," 349.
71 Michael Hough, Out ofPlace: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1990), 126.
46
industrial areas. However, by aesthetically domesticating an area the process can be
critiqued as sanitizing and thus falsifying history.72 Heritage thus becomes caricature.
Nevertheless, romanticizing industrial ruins, whether interpreted as heritage or
not, has become an attractive trope for industrial heritage enthusiasts. Edensor critiques
the commemorative nature of preservation as commodifying memory, replacing real
memories with packaged ones, and turning nostalgia into an industry through a
hierarchical creation ofknowledge. 73 In his view, the best historic industrial sites are
unimproved or uninterpreted ruins that embody an anti-tourism, anti-heritage ethos and
provide space for alternative activity in an increasingly homogenous landscape. While
attractive to many, this view is, of course, a bit quixotic. As Alfrey and Putnam point
out, historic sites, no matter how "authentic" they may seem, rarely speak for
themselves. 74 All interpretations are constructions of meaning and value, whether
official or personaL
Even when fully embraced has having heritage value, preserving historic
industrial landscapes encounters resistance because their conservation is often expensive,
and hence perceived as unsustainable. As Blockly states, "a purely academic case can be
made for the historical significance of many industrial sites and landscapes, but the scale
and complexity of industrial sites, landscapes and even whole townscapes make their
72 Tim Edensor, Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 129; Alfrey and Putnam, 56-
57; Storm, 169.
73 Edensor, 127-129.
74 Alfrey and Putnam, 198.
47
long-term maintenance particularly costly.,,75 This becomes especially important to local
communities who, despite their best efforts, may not be able to sustain an industrial
heritage preservation project on a large scale. It may be easy to preserve a component of
an historic system, but it is difficult and costly to preserve an entire system. 76 Where
there is a high concentration of industrial sites it may not be possible or even desirable to
conserve and directly manage more than a small portion. Nevertheless, protecting and
interpreting the entire industrial landscape to the best of the stakeholders' abilities is
more beneficial to the understanding and integrating of multiple heritage values than the
usual trend of isolated site preservation. Artifacts are part of complexes, and complexes
are components of larger systems and landscapes. One large extant feature might have
actually had less of an impact on the landscape than less striking features or features now
lost. In this way, an authentic part may not represent an authentic whole. Many
preservation approaches break down complex systems in this manner into simple
arrangements. When they attempt to reintroduce preservation solutions based on the
simpler systems into the landscape, they often fail to address the larger landscape issues
they were trying to solve in the first place. Industrial heritage can therefore only really be
understood as a dynamic cultural landscape.
Another important element of industrial landscape preservation is the class and
culture differences between the various stakeholders, from local residents to corporate
management to preservation professionals. Tensions exist especially where the effects of
75 Blockley, 150.
76 Frederic L. Quivik, "Authenticity and the Preservation of Technological Systems," CRM' The Journal ofHeritage
Stewardship 5, no 2 (Summer 2008), 28.
48
deindustrialization have recently affected the community. For instance, there tends to be
a division between residents who want housing, communities, and landscapes that are
comfortable and "socially satisfying," with preservation professionals who desire places
that are "visually interesting."n In Keweenaw National Historic Park in Michigan, one
of the few historic mining communities specifically commemorated by the National
Parks System, residents owning private property within the park feel they live with a
double standard for having to submit to preservation guidelines that prove expensive in
the region's depressed economy, while properties adjacent to the park are not subject to
those standards. 78 This also relates to the sometimes volatile relationship between
management and labor that infuses industrial culture. Many industrial companies have
embraced industrial heritage themselves, keeping extensive archives, documenting their
own technological processes, and publicizing these activities in company museums and
other history projects. However, critics feel that companies falsely use history and
artifacts to verify themselves, or as a way to make the present and future look more
modem and promising. 79 In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, some former employees of
decommissioned steel mills feel so betrayed by the companies that closed that preserving
the heritage of those places is pure anathema. 8o The relationship of the aesthetic, social,
77 Arnold R. Alanen, "Considering the Ordinary: Vernacular Landscapes in Small Towns and Rural Areas," in
Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, eds. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2000),138.
78 Alanen, 138-39.
79 Storm, 79.
80 Amanda Kolson Hurley, "Industrial Strength," Preservation 57, no. 3 (MaylJune 2005): 36.
49
and historical values of the preservationist and the community thus changes with every
location and circumstance.
Perhaps the most promising, and the most difficult, role for industrial heritage
preservation is its identification with the ability to provide financial assistance to
communities that have lost viable industries. Returning to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania as
an example, redevelopment efforts at the massive Bethlehem Steel complex have created
an ongoing dialogue between residents, preservationists, and investors. Major
redevelopment schemes will demolish and adaptively reuse many of the buildings for a
variety of residential and commercial uses. The owners, one of whom is still the
Bethlehem Steel Corporation, also have the support of the Smithsonian Institution to
create a state-of-the-art National Museum ofIndustrial History in some of the historic
structures. While billed as attractive development scheme for an area that has lost much
of its traditional revenue base through the plant closures, grassroots organizers worry that
as development plans continue, preservation purposes will get sidelined by the economic
values. 81 For instance, many of the proposed tenants are casinos, making gambling the
major revenue producer at the site, an activity which residents feel is not an appropriate
use of what they see as a community resource. Perhaps more revealing is that plans for
the museum have stalled, forcing residents to question the proposed educational purpose
of redevelopment. While the sheer scale and complexity of industrial sites embody many
possibilities, tensions among stakeholders highlight the need to remember the living
81 Hurley, 37.
50
nature of these landscapes when deciding preservation objectives for industrial heritage
landscapes.
Aspiration
Industrial landscapes are dynamic places assigned many meanings. These
landscapes help to define the sense of place, personality and scale of a particular region
or environment. By removing them, or by masking their character, we divorce ourselves
from connections that create place and identity. As Hough states, "Expressions of
regional identity, although basic to built form, are also fundamentally part of the cultural
landscape that preservation values often ignore. All man-made landscapes ... are tied to
their geographic, climatic, and historic context. They represent time and place and must,
to stay viable, have relevance to life today.,,82 Preservation is not an activity just to be
seen and admired, but should contribute to the living landscape. By focusing on
identifying and protecting the material aspects of the past, preservation has emphasized
stability over change. As Melnick points out, in most cases change in the landscape is
anticipated, recognizable, desirable, and even essential to landscape character, existence,
and sustainability.83 Gardens are planted with the expectation they will grow and wither
with the seasons, natural resources experience cycles of exploitation and conservation,
city boundaries are constantly in flux. The very act of identifying, evaluating, and
managing a landscape changes its meaning. The importance of recognizing the values
82 Hough, 157.
83 Robert Z. Melnick, "Considering Nature and Culture in Historic Landscape Preservation," in Preserving Cultural
Landscapes in America, eds. Arnold R. Alanen and Robert Z. Melnick (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2000), 23; Melnick, "Strangers," 7.
51
brought to the preservation process cannot be understated. As Fairclough states, "Even
the most'destructive' and disliked of present day landscape changes will become
softened by time and by familiarity, and eventually accepted in to popular perceptions of
landscape.,,84 Landscapes are thus more than just physical places. They are processes in
a constant state ofbecoming, especially when combined with human action and desire.
The following chapters will investigate how industrial landscape preservation practice
and cultural landscape values manifest themselves in a particular type of industrial place:
the historic hard-rock mining landscapes of the American West.
84 Fairclough, 67.
52
CHAPTER IV
WESTERN MINING LANDSCAPES
Mining Heritage
Mining as an industry has been essential to the development of the nation, and
especially the American West, yet its extensive impact as a historic cultural landscape has
only recently received a comparable amount of attention in the historic preservation
profession. Like all industrial landscapes, mining landscapes embody conflicting
meanings and values. Mining landscapes have come to symbolize prosperity and vice,
industrial progress and environmental destruction. At their best, mining landscapes are
celebrated as "venerable artifacts of human and technological productivity.,,85 At their
worst, they can be "blasted and godforsaken, sinister and perhaps vaguely immoral in
character.,,86 The tension between man and nature is palpable in mining sites, where man
has fundamentally altered the natural processes of the landscape through changing
physical characteristics such as topography and hydrology, and in turn been affected by
these changes, from monetary enrichment to the degradation of physical and
environmental health and welfare. Perhaps what contributes most to this perception is
that mining landscapes are often "hidden" in marginal environments and deep rural
85 Peter Goin and Elizabeth Raymond, "Recycled Landscapes: Mining's Legacies in the Mesabi Iron Range," in
Technologies ofLandscape: From Reaping to Recycling, ed. David E. Nye (Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press, 1999), 272.
86 Goin and Raymond, 267.
53
places, thus increasing the dramatic scope of man's presence in the landscape. Mining
landscapes are both actively contested and purposefully ignored. Nevertheless, these
places contain a variety of features, processes, and stories that are fundamental to the
American experience and worth protecting in their complex entirety. The following
discussion will describe the fundamental characteristics, processes, and preservation
philosophies associated with historic mining landscapes to better understand how they
represent the complex range of values surrounding industrial heritage preservation.
Historic Mining Landscapes
Mining in the western United States initially developed because of demands for
precious metals and other ores to support Eastern industries. Because of this economic
interaction, Western mining networks and their supporting systems were interrelated and
interconnected from the beginning to larger sociotechnical "world systems."S7 For
instance, transporting raw materials and supplies across multiple geographical and
political boundaries was central to the success of the mining endeavor. The mining
industry could not have existed without the railroads, a fact reflected in the abundant
remains of features and architecture associated with transportation systems the mining
landscape. Inventions such as the telegraph allowed for the rapid exchange of
information, transmitting ideas and symbols that perpetuated cultural patterns and
ideological systems in the newly settled West. The frontier population was also a part of
this complex system, for far from homogenous, these populations contained a variety of
87 Richard V. Francaviglia, Hard Places: Reading the Landscape ofAmerica's Historic Mining District (Iowa City,
University of Iowa Press, 1991), xix; Donald L. Hardesty, The Archaeology ofMining and Miners: A View from the
Silver State, Special Publication Series 6 (Society for Historical Archaeology, 1988), I.
54
nationalities, ethnicities, and gender relationships. Mining landscapes have thus always
embodied complexities of multiple systems, processes, and values of the industrial
enterprise.
The most immediately identifiable characteristics of historic mining landscapes
today arise from their visual qualities, which tend to be defined by topography, spatial
distribution, and the built environment. The remains of technological processes
associated with mining are most visible in the form of dumps, tailings, and structural
ruins; many of the actual structures and machines themselves no longer remain,
necessitating a close reading of the landscape and historical literature to define what
processes once existed. Because of this, the morphology of residential settlements or
mining camps has become the focal point for information about mining areas, such as
whether or not they were planned communities, or how the quality and construction of
extant buildings describes the prosperity and social composition of the enterprise. 88 The
individual household also provides a reference for how mining communities functioned
in the overall landscape and connected to larger social, economic, and technological
patterns.
The physical remoteness of these places, along with the associated solutions for
overcoming such isolation, also had a profound impact on the layout and structure of the
mining landscape. Geographically, settlement patterns tended to follow geological
configurations. Large settlements grew near large deposits, while scattered settlements
88 Hardesty, 13-15.
55
and dispersed households covered areas with widespread or low yield deposits. 89
However, mining districts were also often quickly and aggressively developed,
overcoming their physical isolation through the growth of roads, railroads, and extensive
mining networks. 90 Crossing obstacles of space and time through communication and
transportation were essential for keeping the enterprise practical and efficient.
The various technologies employed in mining landscapes have different effects on
the landscape as well. Placer mining techniques, for example, extract loose, water
transported, and secondary deposits that are on or close to the ground surface. The most
obvious remains associated with placer mining are dredges or hydraulic mining methods,
which leave large physical scars on the streambeds and river valleys. Hard rock
techniques, on the other hand, mine in situ minerals underground, or more recently, in
open pit mines. Evidence of these techniques can be seen in remains of various
excavation methods, hoisting methods, ventilation methods, and drainage methods. 91
Most of these reflect the unique mining feature of the underground landscape and are
often hidden from view; however, some artifacts such as head frames have come to
represent this mining activity on the landscape surface. More visible remains of mining
activity frequently relate to milling systems, such as assaying, mechanical crushing,
simple and chemical collection methods such as cyanide leaching, and smelting and
fi · h 92re mmg t e ores.
89 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 76; Hardesty, 101-102.
90 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 72-73.
91 Hardesty, 20-30.
92 Hardesty, 39-51.
56
A useful concept for understanding the interrelationship between these
characteristics is the "feature system" developed by Hardesty. Feature systems consist of
groups of features that relate to a specific human activity.93 They may include
geographically dispersed features, and individual features may be included in multiple
systems. 94 Multiple "activity loci" can comprise one feature system. To illustrate,
Hardesty uses the example of the Consolidated Cortez Mill in Cortez Mining District,
NV, which represents multiple interacting feature systems through the remains of a
concentration and cyanide mill, tailings flow, tram system, support buildings, and trash
scatters all in located in the same discrete area. 95
Another important component of the mining landscape includes the cycles of
occupation and abandonment that create the temporal layers or "components" of feature
systems, which can also coexist within multiple feature systems. Unlike many
occupational patterns, the components of mining landscapes tend to be dispersed
horizontally rather than vertically beneath the soil. Francaviglia describes the mining
landscape as "inside out" because of the tendency for internal industrial workings to be
laid out across the landscape in this manner. 96 Mining sites are also discontinuous, in
that earlier components have often been destroyed by later components. The life cycle of
a mine has distinct impacts on the landscape. The early stages of exploration tend to be
localized and moderate in scale, while subsequent development intensifies and
93 Hardesty, 9.
94 Hardesty, 10-11.
95 Hardesty, 58-65.
96 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 98.
57
encourages urbanization and land uses that have greater impacts on the landscape,
including the constant reworking and reconfiguring of ore sites. 97 When mining ceases,
divestment allows the process of economic development to be overtaken by nature or
stabilization through preservation and reclamation. 98 The nature of the mining landscape
is thus transitory, and even dramatic topographical features are quickly reclaimed by the
natural environment through attrition, erosion, and revegetation. The current landscape
character is really a montage of all previous activity. Looking at both the historic and
contemporary processes that created the mining landscape is therefore essential for
understanding their present form and future potential.
Mining Landscape Preservation
Preserving mining landscapes in the American West has been popular since the
1920s and 30s, when romantic visions of ghost towns began to permeate the American
psyche through the creative works of artists, writers and films. The trend continued
through the mid-20th century centennial of the many western gold rushes, where
increasing tourism and published guidebooks encouraged the public to "celebrate and
protect" well known historical sites. 99 While this served to fuel popular imagination of
the mining landscape, comprehensive preservation efforts did not begin until legislative
and litigious regulations were established in the mid-to-late 20th century. In particular,
97 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 152-155.
98 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 134-135.
99 Dydia Delyser, '''Good, by God, We're Going to Bodie!' Ghost Towns and the American West," in Western Places,
American Myths: How We ThinkAbout the West, ed. Gary J. Hauslader (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 2003),
285.
58
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
(CERCLA) 1980 introduced the concept of placing liability for remediation of industrial
sites on the industries that created them. The act created the SUPERFUND, inspiring
massive litigation of the mining industry throughout the 1980s, which in tum necessitated
major work in researching mining history, technology, settlements and the like for both
sides of the lawsuits. 100 Because of its place in various legal frameworks, historic
preservation became a part of mitigation as landscapes changed due to remediation. 101
Many historic mining sites are on public land and thus subject to federal historic
preservation laws. These include not only the National Historic Preservation Act, but
also Public Law 94-429 which governs mining activity on National Park Service lands
specifically, and 36 CFR Part 9, which governs mineral management on public lands in
general. 102 The concern, however, is that most mining continues to operate under the
1872 General Mining Law, which states, "all valuable mineral deposits in lands
belonging to the United States ... [are] free and open to exploration and purchase... ,,103
Most land managers take the position that the Mining Law does not conflict with historic
preservation laws because written in the former is a requirement to comply with other
federal laws and regulations. 104 However, revitalization of the mining industry in recent
100 James E. Fell, Jr., "Old Mines, New Developments: Preservation, the Environment, and Public History in the
Mining West," in Preserving Western History, ed. Andrew Guilliford (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
2005),386.
lOt Ibid.
102 Code o/Federal Regulations, Title 36, Part 9 (1977), http://law.justia.comJus/cfr/title36/36-1.0.1.1.9.html (accessed
March 28, 2009).
103 Hardesty, 105.
104 Ibid.
59
years has caused old mining districts to be revisited, often using open pit mining
techniques, which are extremely destructive to historical resources.
Mining landscape preservation thus finds itself at a contradictory junction: though
active mining landscapes are destructive to past remains, they also represent a
continuation of the process that created the landscape to be preserved in the first place.
Respecting process and change struggles with preserving historic fabric. Confrontation is
not only limited to mining companies on federal lands. Many private and local owners
oppose historic designation because they fear a loss of control over their property and the
potential economic benefits from mineral rights, even when the feature is put in a broader
historical context and there is little potential for future development. 105 Another issue
associated with protecting mining landscapes is public safety. Historically interesting
remains can also be extremely dangerous. Mine openings, unstable head frames, and
waste products are just some of the liability issues preservationists must confront.
Preservationists thus face the task of balancing present needs and protection of historical
features in order to successfully preserve the essence of the mining landscape
Interestingly, historic mining landscapes are one of the few industrial landscapes
that have been specifically treated by the National Register of Historic Places. Mining
landscapes are usually designated as historic districts for purposes of identification,
evaluation and registration under these federal guidelines. This is consistent with the
historical pattern of organizing mining sites themselves in to mining districts in order to
integrate the disparate processes that supported the mining enterprise. However, the
105 Fell, 383; Francaviglia, "Boomtowns," 355.
60
focus on districts has also complicated the selection of temporal and spatial boundaries,
as both man-induced and natural activities intrude on the historic fabric, making the
landscape difficult to read. Property boundaries associated with multiple property owners
impede cohesive landscape preservation efforts. In most cases, the interrelated mining
activity spreads far wider than the practical boundaries of any district. The guidelines
thus stress the importance of establishing historic contexts as a primary focus in mining
landscape preservation. Historic contexts should establish themes, time periods, and
geographic locations explaining mining activity, in order to better define the transitory
nature of the mining landscape. 106 Refreshingly, these guidelines go farther than most in
incorporating the multiple feature systems that comprise a mining landscape.
Unfortunately, the mining landscape is still viewed as a component of or setting for the
variety of historic resources, rather than a fundamental framework of inquiry into the
values behind mining history and historic preservation.
Despite this attention, the types of mining landscapes most often preserved today
are somewhat limited, reflecting society's perception of what has been called the
"mythic" or "symbolic" West. Beginning as early as the late 1800s, journalists in active
Western mining camps wrote elaborate stories of their travels, painting a provocative
picture of the American frontier. As images of the rugged landscape and individuals
permeated the public imagination, they also came to embrace the West as the antithesis of
the urbanized industrial landscape where "independence, self-reliance, and high moral
106 Bruce J. Noble Jr, and Robert Spude, Guidelines/or IdentifYing, Evaluating, and Registering Historic Mining
Properties (Washington, DC: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1992), 3-5.
61
character reign." 107 This vision was perpetuated through literature, film and television,
developing into the ultimate American genre of "the Western." As people came to
understand these landscapes through the popular image, the places themselves began to
self-consciously reflect that image, creating a "feedback loop" of intermingling history
and perception. lOS Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of this is the western ghost
town, which is almost always associated with the mining enterprise. Ghost towns are
usually defined as defunct, depopulated places that invoke the spirit and association of
the mining legacy through the remaining material culture. Paradoxically, ghost towns
just as often "live off the romantic construction of themselves" 109 through embracing and
capitalizing on their perceived history. Ghost towns speak to a general fascination with
the inevitability of time and decay, as well as symbolize the former greatness and success
of mining communities. Some ghost towns are hardly specters at all, celebrating renewed
vitality though tourism and recreation. Most mining landscapes contain elements of both
abandonment and revitalization.
The largest criticism of mining landscape preservation has been that it tends to
sanitize the truth of these dirty, difficult places in order to fit this popular imagination.
Most mining landscape preservation attempts to reconcile man and nature to the greatest
extent possible, encouraging reclamation of a natural scene over revealing the complexity
of the mining process and its consequences. Like many preservation projects, preserved
l07 Dydia Delyser, "Authenticity on the Ground: Engaging the Past in a California Ghost Town," Annals ofthe
Association ofAmerican Geographers 89, no. 4 (Dec. 1999): 609.
108 Delyser, "Authenticity," 612.
109 Eric L. Clements, "For Sale by Owner: Western Tourism and Historic Preservation," in Preserving Western History,
ed. Andrew Guilliford (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 343.
62
mining landscapes also create icons, conserving a limited selection of some (usually the
most aesthetically pleasing) artifacts over others that may be less understood or less
visually compelling. Perhaps the most profound accusation is that the process of
selection for mining landscape preservation tends to be a self-perpetuating cycle of
protecting sites that are attractive or marketable at the expense of context and historical
truth. 11D For example, in his discussion of the preservation of Cokedale, Colorado, David
Robertson criticizes the way this mining company town has been cleaned up to
emphasize the idyllic, paternalistic success of a company town rather than represent a
comprehensive picture of its industrial heritage, complete with the hardships of mining
life and the community's struggle to survive after the mines closed. III This self-
perpetuated image of a utopian community town has had profound impacts on
preservation practices, essentially ignoring the industrial infrastructure and vernacular
character of the town in favor of the well-appointed upper class houses and community
structures. 1I2 Robertson blames this on the use of the original National Register
nomination as the basis for landscape preservation decisions, which focuses solely on the
architectural character of the town site, rather than then entire mining experience. 113 This
emphasizes the need for utilizing cultural landscape values as a broader preservation
approach that take the complexities of place into account at these types of industrial
places.
liD Clements, 341-342; Francaviglia, Hard Places, 180-183.
III David Robertson, "Cultural Landscape Preservation and Public History in Cokedale, Colorado," in Preserving
Western History, ed. Andrew Guilliford (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 367.
112 Robertson, 374-375.
113 Robertson, 368.
63
Adding to the challenges of mining landscape preservation is that preserving
ghost towns has become a popular business which can both benefit and harm the historic
landscape. Themed amusement parks such as the Ghost Town at Knott's Berry Farm in
California perpetuate the stereotypical view of mining landscapes and mining history. 114
While most historic mining sites do not go to this extreme of reconstruction, even
preservation done in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Guidelines for
Rehabilitation has been criticized as inappropriately "upscale" for historic mining
landscapes. I IS Scholars such as Clements facetiously comment on the presence of "the
gunfighters and the shady ladies" as the dominant symbols of western places as a
symptom of how commerce prevails over preservation at these sites. 116 However,
tourism and recreation has become how communities once dependent on resource
extraction now make money. As in other forms of heritage tourism, the public now
expects tactile, hands-on involvement when they visit historical places. 117 The mix of
education and entertainment promoted through underground mine tours has become a
primary vehicle for site interpretation and preservation. Self-guided tours, or interpreting
mine complexes in situ such as through ecomuseums, comprise the bulk of historic
mining landscape preservation activities. The values of recreation, economy, personal
meaning and experience often take precedence at historic mining sites as a result.
114 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 201.
115 Francaviglia, "Boomtowns," 353.
116 Clements, 344-345.
117 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 198.
64
Historic mining landscapes exemplify the complexities that industrial heritage
sites pose to landscape preservation efforts. The American West especially has been
shaped by mining and its associated processes and systems. Historic mining places
illustrate the constantly changing and ephemeral nature of industrial landscapes,
including the fluctuation in values and uses ascribed to them. Issues surrounding
perceptions of industry versus nature, protection of property rights, and even American
identity are wrapped up in these landscapes. The unique challenges of preserving mining
landscapes have led preservation practitioners to create preservation guidelines
specifically aimed at historic mining properties. Undoubtedly, progress has been made
by focusing important connections among multiple categories of resources through
historic context studies; however, preservation practice concentrated only on this strategy
runs the danger of failing to attend to the current values and future potential attributed to
the landscape. Ironically, it appears that the historical and aesthetic values so often
ascribed to heritage places has been outweighed by the popular values of entertainment,
recreation, and personal experience. Understanding the values contributing to mining
heritage conservation may provide the best way to understand the historic mining
landscape itself.
65
CHAPTER V
CASE STUDIES
The interaction between landscape values and historic industrial landscape
preservation will best be served by grounding them in real-world examples. Case studies
provide a vehicle for describing projects and processes as they relate to theory and
practice, which in tum allows links to be made between the concrete, context specific
subjects to larger, more generalized levels of preservation theory and practice. 118 The
next section presents four historic mining sites in the American West as specific
illustrations of some approaches currently taken towards a particular theme in historic
industrial landscape preservation.
Historic mining landscapes were chosen as the descriptive framework because of
their complexity, variety, and spatially and temporally extensive impacts on the
landscape. While necessarily content and context specific, these qualities also describe
the fundamental characteristics of many industrial landscapes. The case studies were
geographically limited to the Western United States, and functionally limited to hard rock
mineral extraction in order to provide a consistent basis for comparison; the sites contain
similar landscape features, setting, and scale. As described in Chapter II, the sites were
also chosen based on their management framework to include one each of preservation at
118 Mark Francis, "A Case Study Method for Landscape Architecture," Landscape Journal 20, no. 1 (2001):16-17, 19.
66
the Federal or National level, the State or regional level, the community or non-profit
level, and the individual or private level. Any number of historic mining sites could have
been used; however, the following examples were chosen because they are well-
established, well-developed sites that have distinct preservation processes and
philosophies in place. The values associated with each place have presumably been
articulated. This allows for the investigation of whether the values of dynamism and
comprehensiveness associated with cultural landscape preservation have been addressed.
The sites to be discussed are Kennecott National Historic Landmark in the
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in central Alaska (figure 5.2), Bodie State Historic Park
in eastern California (figure 5.9), Tonopah Historic Mining Park in Tonopah, Nevada
(figure 5.15), and the Argo Gold Mill and Museum in central Colorado (figure 5.19).
Figure 5.1 shows the general location of each site within the region. Each case describes
the site's location and provides an overview of its historical significance and
development as an industrial heritage site. Each place is then described according to the
four landscape characteristics ofprocess, space, time and change outlined in Chapter II.
The purpose of categorizing information in this way is to illustrate whether and how
landscape characteristics and values are present at the chosen sites. Analysis of the
successes and challenges of these sites at addressing landscape values, and how they
contribute to the broader discussion of industrial landscape preservation will continue in
the following chapters.
67
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68
Kennecott National Historic Landmark
Figure 5.2. POliion of the historic mill town at Kennecott National Historic Landmark.
Photograph courtesy of http://www.artificialowl.net.
Fundamentals
• Location: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska
• Owner: National Park Service and Private Citizens
• Operator: National Park Service
• Management Level: National
69
Location
The Kennecott National Historic Landmark is located in the center of Wrangell-
St. Elias National Park and Preserve in south-central Alaska near the modern town of
McCarthy (figures 5.3 and 5.4). The Landmark boundaries encompass 7,700 acres of
public and private lands that once included some of the richest high-grade copper
deposits in the American West (figure 5.5). The primary focus of the district is the
historic mill town that was the center of operations for the Kennecott Copper Corporation
(figure 5.6).
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70
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from the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve brochure, National Park Service.
Historical Overview
Copper was first discovered in the Kennecott area in 1900 on Bonanza Ridge, a
moraine above the Kennicott Glacier. Other discoveries followed, with multiple claims
made in the area by prospectors and small mining companies through 1902. However,
because of its extreme isolation and the resulting transportation difficulties, it took
another six years before the claims could be fully developed into a profitable enterprise.
Mining companies joined forces with massive financial backing from East Coast banks
and investors to become the "Alaska Syndicate." 119 Represented by the Kennecott Mines
Company, this conglomeration consolidated the claims and developed extensive
infrastructure to exploit the ore. By 1907, the town of Kennecott was established, and
construction of its large concentration mill begun. By 1911 the railroad had reached the
119 Cathy GilbeJ1, Paul White and Anne Worthington, Cultural Landscape Report: Kennecol! Mill Town, Wrangell-St.
Elias National Park and Preserve (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 200 I):
17.
71
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White and Anne Worthington, Cultural Landscape Report: Kennecott Mill Town,
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department
of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001): Figure 3.
,Refrigaration Plant
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10. East Bunkhouse 23.
11. National Creek Bunkhouse 24.
12. Train Depot (VISITOR aNTER) 25.
13. saw Mill (ruin) 26,
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buildings and artifads. As you explore. please remember•••
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73
town, allowing ore shipments to reach outside markets. The Alaska Syndicate was
replaced by the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1915. Under this management, mining
continued successfully for the next 20 years, expanding infrastructure and facilities into a
large, self-sufficient town and mining network. Depletion of the ore body finally closed
the min in 1938. Closure of the railroad soon followed, and the mines and town were
abandoned until 1965, when the Consolidated Wrangell Mining Company acquired rights
to the area and began surface mining operations. These operations ceased in the 1970s,
and the property was subdivided for sale to the public. 120 After closure of active mining
operations, the site saw increased tourism, especially following the establishment of the
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in 1980. The National Park Service became a partner in
the preservation and use of the site, assisting with stabilization and recordation efforts
through the 1990s.
Site History
Nearly eight thousand acres of the landscape and associated resources utilized by
the Kennecott Copper Corporation were designated a National Historic Landmark in
1986. The National Park Service became the official owner and primary steward of
2,839 acres surrounding the historic mill town site in 1998. However, many private
property owners and organizations in the area had already impacted the landscape,
modifying, demolishing, stabilizing and rehabilitating structures in and around the town
to encourage visitation and assist with visitor safety and interpretation. These activities
120 Gilbert et aI, 47.
74
have since been formalized, and the National Park Service, a non-profit association called
Friends of Kennecott, and private concessioners, now share stewardship responsibilities
at the site. During the 1990s, the Kennecott Corporation also conducted hazardous
material remediation, removing asbestos from buildings and capping waste piles.
Landscape Characteristics
Processes
Historic processes associated with the copper mining industry have long since
ceased. Mining, milling, concentrating ore, and transportation by tram and railroad no
longer operate in the landscape. However, they retain a presence through interpretation.
According to chief historic architect for the site Steve Peterson, industrial sites like
Kennecott are viewed as being fundamentally about function. 121 Protecting the essential
elements of each historical function or process represented in the landscape becomes
necessary for integrating contemporary uses. The main processes operating at the site
today are thus aimed at enhancing visitor experience, which includes interpreting past
processes, but not attempting to recreate or reintroduce them.
The destruction of landscape features by natural and cultural processes is
especially evident in an isolated and severe environment such as Kennecott. Multiple
floods have inundated the town, sweeping away buildings and objects and depositing
gravel and boulders; vegetation encroaches on historical circulation patterns and
structures (figure 5.7). Alterations to the landscape through post-historic use, such
121 Steve Peterson, Interview, February 5, 2009.
75
Figure 5.7. Buildings in the pathway of National Creek, Kennecott NHL. A severe flood in
2006 deposited massive amounts of gravel and damaged multiple buildings. Photograph
courtesy of www.steliasguides.com.
as the creation of waste piles from surface mining operations and alterations to buildings
and spatial organization due to private property development, have impacted the
landscape context of some historic resources. Rather than attempt to fight these
processes, the primary preservation treatment at Kennecott has been stabilization, though
some rehabilitation and adaptive reuse is permitted and necessary to enhance visitor
experience. The intention is not to disturb more than necessary in order to retain the
"rough" texture of the surroundings that gives the town its ambiance of decay and
abandonment.
However, despite what appears to be a relatively hands-off preservation approach,
the town of Kennecott has also been a laboratory for industrial landscape preservation
practices. The town site has been the subject of extensive documentation efforts,
including a full HAER of the concentrator mill and other primary industrial features. In
2001, NPS conducted a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) of the mill town to better
integrate the existing research and provide recommendations for a more holistic treatment
76
of the industrial landscape. Mines and mining features associated with the surrounding
landscape have also been researched and documented, though not to the same extent as
the town site. 122
Perhaps one of the most important contemporary processes at the site is the
constant negotiation between the public and private stakeholders. Though Kennecott
itself is considered a "ghost town," it is surrounded by an active community. Because the
NHL boundaries include private property, those property owners may do what they like
with their parcels, though they are encouraged to be sensitive to the historic character of
the place and follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of
Historic Properties. In addition, the town of McCarthy lies only five miles away,
providing the major point of departure for most visitors to Kennecott. Locally operated
companies based in McCarthy and elsewhere have been providing tours of the area since
before Park Service acquisition, and continue to do so with the encouragement ofNPS.
Because the NHL is so extensive, it is difficult to keep people out of the property
boundaries. Rather than police the property, emphasis has been placed on keeping people
safe through the selective closure of particularly hazardous areas. The landscape of
Kennecott thus intermingles historical processes with modem necessities to produce the
contemporary scene.
122 For site histories of the primary mines of Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie, Glacier, and Slide see Logan Hovis,
Appendix H: Site History-Kennecott Mine Sites, in Cultural Landscape Report: Kennecott Mill Town, Wrangell-St.
Elias National Park and Preserve (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001).
77
Space
Kennecott is dramatically situated on the western slope of Bonanza Ridge in the
Wrangell Mountains, overlooking a valley cut by the Kennicott glacier. Mining occurred
on the ridges above the town, instigating the construction of elaborate tramways for
transporting ore and labor to and from the mines, as well as structural complexes around
the mines themselves. Because of its isolated location and complex terrain, extensive
transportation networks of trails and wagon roads were necessary for the survival of the
mining operation. The railroad is an especially prominent feature in the mining
landscape, providing the district's main access to the outside world. According to the
National Park Service, the Kennecott NHL is viewed as a single cultural landscape
comprised of all of these historic elements arranged into four categories: the mill town,
which supported the mining operation; the mine sites on the ridge where ore was
extracted; the tram system that linked the mine and town sites; and regional
transportation systems. 123 The relationship between these elements, as well as the natural
landforms and environmental context, provide the basis for a comprehensive
understanding ofthe historical cultural landscape. However, most research, management
activity, and development has focused on the town site or "core" of the NHL. Little
planning and development has occurred on the periphery of the NHL boundaries, in part
due to accessibility issues, as well as time, funding, and established priorities for
visitation.
123 Gilbert et aI, 161.
78
In order to interpret the core as a landscape in itself, the town site has been
divided into management zones based on historical function, such as an administrative
core, industrial core, and tiers of residential areas, from large scale enterprises such as
boarding houses to small, single family cabins. The aim is to limit visitor activities to
compatible functional zones. For example, a hotel constructed by a private
concessionaire replaced the empty site of an historic boarding house, and the visitor
center and gift shop is located in the old company store building in the administrative
core. Many of the historic cottages and staff quarters are owned and occupied by private
residents. The central industrial core is dedicated to exhibiting the main historic
industrial function of the site. Though not trying to replicate past activity, explicit
attention is paid to providing a sense of continuity in spatial use patterns at the site.
Though survey and inventories have been conducted for the larger NHL
landscape, the primary data on specific landscape features is again focused on the mill
town. The town site retains over100 structures, including primary buildings such as the
concentration mill, powerhouse, leaching plant, and assay office, in addition to tramway
towers and terminus houses, bunkhouses, a schoolhouse, and managers' offices and
residences. Multiple additional structures occupy the site, such as flumes, tramways, ore
bins, water storage tanks, sheds, and bridges. A large number of features are
archaeological, including structural ruins, mining equipment and machinery, remnant
infrastructure such as pipes and cables, and boardwalks. Most original circulation
patterns remain within the town itself, though the extensive network of roads and trails
leading to and from the town to the mines and other facilities have been obscured or
79
destroyed. Modem additions to the site are purposefully kept to the town's periphery,
and mostly include visitor services, such as a shuttle tum around and a kiosk with
introductory interpretation. Signage is kept to a minimum on site as there was little
evidence of historical signage; interpretation occurs mostly through secondary sources
such as guided tours.
Time
The passage of time is quite visible at Kennecott. Its image is very much one of
an abandoned industrial monolith slowly being reclaimed by nature. Aside from
stabilization, little effort has been made to restore the landscape to the historic period.
Vegetation encroaches on buildings, obscuring historic landscape features such as
gardens and industrial activity, as well as historic views and vistas that contributed to the
town's industrial character. 124 Both natural and cultural factors have caused buildings
and auxiliary structures to collapse and disappear. This character is purposefully
enhanced by its contrast with the contemporary incarnation of the landscape as a place of
tourism. Modem stabilization efforts and new construction, while aiming to be
historically compatible in subjects such as materials and paint color, are far from
obscured. According to Steve Peterson, the aim is to be clear about what is historic and
what is recent, so as not to falsify history for the visitor. 125 However, the perception of
time is also carefully managed. For example, the Interim Operations Plan proscribes
selective thinning of vegetation to enhance historic view sheds, but retain "the character
124 Gilbert et aI, 49:
125 Steve Peterson, Interview, February 5,2009.
80
of the abandoned mining town partially reclaimed by nature." 126 The expression of time
thus cannot be taken for granted at Kennecott.
Change
Much has changed at Kennecott since its active days as a mining district, though
perhaps not as much as in some other mining landscapes. While a remarkable amount of
intact buildings remain from the historical period, a significant number have also been
destroyed by time, natural processes, and human intervention. Nearly all privies and
smaller structures have collapsed, as have large structures such as a sawmill and oil
house. As recently as 2006, a flood on National Creek severely damaged four buildings,
including the assay office and hospital, and completely destroyed the historic railroad
trestle. Portions of the landscape that have a different rate of change from buildings such
as vegetation have altered more dramatically. For instance, the early miners spent years
harvesting the surrounding hills of the native forest for timber; today the hills are thickly
forested, obscuring most historic roadways and trails (figure 5.8). Though most
archaeological sites have been preserved in situ, the fact that so many features have
become archaeological sites in the relatively short span of 50 years attest to the dramatic
influence that time and process has on changing the physical composition of the
landscape in this harsh, isolated environment. Paradoxically, it is this isolation that has
kept Kennecott from even more rapid destruction by vandalism, salvage, and over-
visitation.
126 Appendix A: Interim Operation Plan, Kennecott National Historic Landmark, in Cultural Landscape Report:
Kennecott Mill Town, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service, 2001).
81
Figure 5.8. Historic view of Kennecott (circa 1910). Note the lack of
vegetation on the hillsides and the presence of railcars. Photograph
courtesy of www.ste1iasguides.com.
Shifting uses and management efforts at Kennecott are perhaps the most clearly
exhibited features of change at the site. While industrial mining obviously no longer
dominates the area, efforts have been made at keeping new land use patterns compatible
with their historic counterparts, as described in the processes section. This has not halted
the construction of new features, however, as the construction of the Kennecott Glacier
Lodge attests. Official park documents acknowledge change is inevitable and take
measures to plan for its management. The Interim Operations Plan for the park
specifically states that change at the park should be incremental, emphasizing that
82
projects occur in small steps, at moderate costs, and with minimal intervention. 127 This
includes stabilizing structures, reconstructing historic features such as boardwalks that
assist visitor enjoyment of the park, and adaptive reuse ofdesignated structures. The aim
is to keep changes consistent with the operational and educational goals of the site, which
includes minimal impact to the site's historic fabric.
Summary
The preservation experience at Kennecott National Historic Landmark indicates a
proactive approach towards cultural landscape preservation. The use of zoning to
encourage compatible land use indicates attention to process, as well as retaining spatial
relationships that illustrate the landscape character. The effects of time are very
consciously managed, but not hidden. The amount and rate of change is the most
difficult to distinguish; however, the fact that change has been incorporated into the
management guidelines as a contributing topic indicates a recognition of the value of
preserving essential landscape qualities. Especially notable is the apparent balance of
stakeholder interests, as well as the use of a comprehensive cultural landscape report to
supplement park planning procedures. Of course, this may also be attributed to the fact
that this is a National historic site, staffed and developed by personnel well-versed in
cultural landscape preservation and theory published and promoted by the National Park
Service.
127 Appendix A: Interim Operation Plan, Kennecott National Historic Landmark, in Cultural Landscape Report:
Kennecott Mill Town, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service, 2001).
83
Bodie State Historic Pal·k
Figure 5.9. The cultural landscape of Bodie State Historic Park. Photograph by Don Peting,
2008.
Fundamentals
• Location: Bodie, Mono County, California
• Owner/Operator: California State Parks
• Management Level: Regional/State
84
Location
Bodie, California is located at the north end of the Mono Basin on the eastern
slopes of the Siena Nevada mountain range, near the town of Bridgeport, California.
Bodie lies very close to the border of California and Nevada, 13 miles east of U.S.
Highway 395 (figure 5.10).
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Figure 5.10. Location of Bodie State Historic Park. Map adapted from
www.nationalatlas.gov.
85
Historical Overview
In 1859 William S. Body (also spelled Bodey) and E. S. Taylor discovered gold in
a gulch near the present town site of Bodie. Body died in a snowstorm that winter, and
Taylor and the remaining miners organized the Bodie Mining District, named in honor of
their friend. For the next twenty years, the Bodie District supported a variety of mining
operations, including placer mining, hard-rock mining, and milling. The town site of
Bodie grew steadily during this time, reaching a population of well over five thousand
residents and containing over two thousand structures by 1879. 128 Like most large
mining camps, Bodie had a "Chinatown" and a red-light district, as well as its share of
crime and violence, in addition to churches, fraternal organizations, and even a racetrack
on the edge of town. Bodie experienced a period of decline in the l880s, as mines closed
due to depletion of easily accessible ores. However, the introduction of cyanide leaching
technology and hydroelectric power revitalized the town in the l890s by making
processing lower grade ores and tailings more efficient. Despite a fire that burned down
nearly 60 buildings on Main Street in 1892, by the late 19th century a commercial, urban
and residential core occupied the entire valley, while industrial processing mills, mines,
and other small settlements were scattered among the surrounding hills and ridges.
Mining continued successfully in Bodie until World War 1. After the war, mining
became sporadic, with lessees rather than large corporations moving from mine to mine
as the ores were exhausted. By the 1930s, most large-scale mining efforts had ceased. In
1932, Bodie suffered a devastating fire that burned nearly 90 percent of the town; little
I28Ann E. Huston, Leo R. Barker, and David Quitevis, Bodie Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Nomination, Draft Revision (San Francisco: National Park Service, 2005): 69.
86
was rebuilt, and the town was nearly abandoned by the 1940s. For the next twenty years,
Bodie remained under the stewardship of the last major mining company in the area, the
1.S. Cain Company, which protected the remaining buildings from vandalism. The State
of California began purchasing land in and around the "ghost town" of Bodie in 1960,
and by 1961 Bodie was declared a National Historic Landmark.
Site History
Bodie became a State Historic Park in 1962. Since then, the State of California
has maintained the town in a state of "arrested decay," stabilizing but not restoring
structures, and allowing public visitation. Intermittent mining operations continued in the
surrounding area through the 1980s. In 1997, the California Department of Parks and
Recreation purchased many of the surrounding mining claims, and in 2000 they entered a
cooperative agreement to manage portions of surrounding land administered by the
Bureau of Land Management, ultimately expanding the State Park boundaries to 2,900
acres (figure 5.11). Most of the site, however, continues to focus on the historic core
surrounding the town (figure 5.12).
87
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88
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Figure 5.12. Map of the town site of Bodie. Map by Eureka Caltography, Berkeley, CA for
California State Parks, 2005.
89
Landscape Characteristics
Processes
Concepts that imply movement, such as process, appear to be a paradox in a place
like Bodie, whose most significant characteristic according to most people is its
dormancy. The historical processes of mining, milling and commerce that contributed to
Bodie's existence no longer operate in the landscape. However, many other processes
continue to function, though in a purposefully subtle manner. For example, though the
town of Bodie is supposed to be abandoned, park staff live inside some of the historic
structures during the tourist season. Visitors are not allowed to drive through the town,
but the park is accessed from the highway on historic, unpaved roads, and visitors follow
historic circulation patterns on walking tours through the town. Despite these subtle
traces of historical patterns, they are no longer related to the historical practice of mining
in the area, but to the contemporary process ofpreservation and the educational and
recreational mission of the park system.
The primary process occurring in Bodie is the painstaking stabilization and
preservation of a landscape that experiences extreme environmental stress. However, this
process, too, is manifested in subtle form. In order to maintain the aura of an "authentic
ghost town," the founders devised a preservation strategy called "arrested decay." The
goal was to indefinitely stabilize buildings in their contemporary 1962 state, whether
listing or leaning, deteriorating or intact. Most research and preservation practice in
Bodie has focused on carrying out this process. If a building appears unstable, it is
stabilized in a way to retain its unsteady appearance. If a building collapses, it is rebuilt
90
to reflect its 1962 condition. Moveable artifacts are inventoried, mapped, and replaced
after stabilization, down to the careful removal and reapplication of historic wallpaper.
Bodie staff makes preservation selections based on safety concerns, state of deterioration,
and funding availability. Assessment and recordation by cultural resource management
professionals directs future work. Assessment and recordation activities include creating
architectural drawings, conducting historic research on each structure, evaluation of the
building condition, and evaluation of the historic fabric to be maintained if repairs are
necessary. Many stabilization efforts took place before California State Parks acquired
the property and are still visible, including poles bracing masomy structures or mid-
century roofing material. These are left as they are because they occurred before the
1962 acquisition date; however, current preservation practice favors concealing
stabilization efforts inside the buildings so as not to interfere with the ambiance and
visitor experience (figure 5.13).
Documentation, analysis, stabilization and interpretation of the structural remains
of the Bodie town site has dominated this discourse, probably because they are the most
visible, striking, and visited resources in the area, and thus require the most maintenance
and interpretation. However, because of its iconic nature and extensive collection of
resources, Bodie has also become a laboratory for investigating architecture as material
culture, where patterns of artifact use, and patterns of architectural construction can
provide clues to the social and economic choices made by people in a particular time and
place. More recent efforts have focused on synthesizing this work through use of the
National Register Bulletin 30 Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Rural Historic
91
Landscapes, which aims to incorporate the complex and fragmented remains of features
of all kinds into a comprehensive overview of the historic landscape at Bodie. J 29
Figure 5.13. Pre-1962 stabilization effOits in Bodie, CA. Note the
replacement of the historic stabilizing members, a practice consistent with
retaining all features extant previous to State Park acquisition. Photograph
by the author, 2008.
Space
Bodie is considered the "grandest of our mining ghosts." 130 Not only does it
retain a remarkable amount of historic fabric, but it also retains an air of isolation that
creates a distinct atmosphere of a western mining landscape. The Bodie town site is
129 Huston et aI, 22.
130 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 175.
92
situated in a wide, flat bowl surrounded by a once active mining area of hills and bluffs
reaching elevations of over nine thousand feet. Though it appears to be a lonely place,
Bodie was never completely isolated, connected by roads and railroads to other important
mining and milling areas such as Aurora, Nevada to the east, and the Mono Lake region
to the south. The Bodie Mining District extends far beyond the ghost town that
dominates its image, covering over three thousand acres and retaining multiple historic
landscape features. According to the National Historic Landmark Nomination, the Bodie
Historic District includes 228 contributing resources comprised of 136 buildings, 40
structures,3 objects, and 49 sites. l3l Despite this impressive number, it is but a shadow
of what once existed, as many of the structures and features associated with the mines
have been dismantled or demolished, and much of the town was destroyed by fire in the
1930s. The District also contains 40 noncontributing resources comprised of buildings,
structures, sites, and objects.
Most building types are represented, from residences, commercial and civic
buildings, to barns, privies, and industrial buildings. Especially prominent is the
Standard Mill and its associated buildings, and the public buildings lining Main Street
such as the Dechambeau Hotel and Post Office, the LO.O.F Hall, the Miners Union Hall,
and the Wheaton and Hollis Hotel. Structures include water towers, mine tunnels, roads,
and railroad grades. Objects are limited to fire hydrants and power poles. Sites include
mines, prospecting pits, cemeteries, and the ruins of multiple buildings and structures.
Noncontributing resources are mainly confined to those associated with the development
131 Huston et aI, 5.
93
of Bodie as a historic park, and include interpretive signs, public restrooms, a parking lot,
and mining machinery displays. Most of this has been kept to the periphery of the park in
order to have as little impact as possible on the ambiance created by the historic
structures; there is little to no signage within the town site itself. Circulation patterns
follow the historic roads and trails through the Bodie town site. Openings to mines and
tailings piles litter the hillsides. The hillsides are also covered as they were historically
with scrub and sagebrush and few or no trees that characterize a high desert environment.
Time
The expression of time plays a central role in Bodie, as the entire philosophy
behind the town's preservation was to freeze it in a particular period of time. The period
of its existence as an active mining community from the 1860s to the 1940s is evident in
the physical landscape features that remain. Its transition from an active to an abandoned
place is also evident in the relative lack of historic fabric due to the 1932 fire that
destroyed so much of the townscape. The lonely feeling of an abandoned place has been
retained into the present, with the goal of allowing visitors to "step back in time" and
experience a historic era. However, the concept of time at Bodie remains a conundrum.
Even park managers struggle with the question of whether the park is supposed to
represent a boomtown of the 1800s, or mid-20th century ghost town. Because the process
of decay has been halted, but a process of active restoration, rehabilitation, or reuse has
also not been instituted, the flow of time has turned into an eddy. Bodie sits in a state of
94
limbo, and though purposeful, confuses the connections between the past and the present
(figure 5.14).
Figure 5.14. The historic Standard Mill and surroundings in Bodie State Historic Park. Bodie
has been "frozen" in time through the preservation process of arrested decay. Photograph by
Don Peting, 2008.
Change
Change is purposefully hidden in the landscape of Bodie. The intention of
arrested decay is to mitigate or at least hide the inevitable changes that occur with the
passage of time and shifting processes affecting the landscape. Preservation of a ghost
town in this manner is thus based on resisting change. Battling the elements that produce
95
change, from water and the threat of fire, to vandalism and increasing pressure on the
resources through growing visitation, comprises the central concem for site management.
Most managers feel that the most significant part of Bodie is its presence as a ruin that
has not been restored. In this way, ghost towns such as Bodie aim to create a sense of
history not provided by other preservation treatments. This is part of what makes Bodie
so unique. On the other hand, Bodie is not a pure ruin, because ruins eventually
disappear. The slow process of replacing historic fabric in kind over a long period of
time will actually eventually reconstruct Bodie, piece by piece. Bodie thus treads a fine
line between preserving its sense of place and the actual historic fabric that creates that
feeling. Despite outer appearances, change is occurring at Bodie, if incrementally.
Summary
On the surface, Bodie State Historic Park is comprised of an amazing cultural
landscape. It retains an abundance of historical resources and landscape features, and its
isolation and management have kept these resources visible and in situ in the landscape
more than many other places in the West. The unique preservation practices at Bodie
have inspired many innovative approaches to the processes of stabilization and
interpretation. However, by focusing on an extreme interpretation of preservation - to
literally freeze historic fabric at a moment in time - Bodie confuses the true
characteristics of landscape, which never cease, but flow, change, and inform each other.
Nevertheless, Bodie has come to occupy a unique place in the American imagination, and
most would not have it change at the expense of ruining its impression as the most
96
"authentic" ghost town in the West. Its position as a State Park enhances this conflict,
which on the one hand has an interest in and regulatory mandate to following prescribed
preservation guidelines, and on the other a stake in serving its constituencies who have a
very clear sense of what they value about Bodie.
97
Tonopah Historic Mining Par]{
Figure 5.15. Tonopah Historic Mining Parle Photo courtesy of
www.roadtripamerica.com.
Fundamentals
• Location: Town of Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada
• Owner/Operator: Tonopah Historic Mining Park Foundation
& the Town of Tonopah
• Level: Local/Community
98
Location
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is located in the town of Tonopah in Nye
County, Nevada, approximately halfway between Las Vegas and Reno on U.S. Highway
395 (figure 5.16). The park sits within municipal boundaries on the slopes of prominent
Mount Oddie on the site of the original mining claims that made Tonopah the primary
site of Nevada's "second mining boom" in the early 20lh century (figure 5.17).
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www.nationa1at1as.goY.
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100
Historical Overview
Known as "Queen of the Silver Camps," the discovery by Jim and Belle Butler in
1900 began the second biggest silver strike in Nevada after the famous Comstock Lode.
Like most mining enterprises, Tonopah started as a small, isolated place, with the Butlers
informally leasing shares to other prospectors who came to the area. However, it did not
take long before hundreds of additional miners and capitalists moved to the area, creating
the "boom" that followed. The Butlers retired and sold their claim to the Tonopah
Mining Company in 1902, the town became the county seat in 1905, and by the 1910s
Tonopah was a premier Nevada mining town, complete with large block buildings and
multiple mills to process ore coming from the mines. Tonopah quickly overcame its
isolation, becoming a central distribution point for other mining enterprises in the
region. 132 Mining remained prosperous until the early 1920s and steady through World
War II, when mining was replaced by the Tonopah Army Air Force Base as the primary
employer. However, by the late 1940s, the air base had closed, the railroad was
abandoned, and most of the mining companies had left. Tonopah moved to a mixed
economy, focusing on tourism as well as the nearby Nevada Test Site, where hundreds of
atomic devices have been detonated since the 1950s. 133 However, mining never ceased
completely. Though greatly reduced in scale, mining on the original Butler claims has
continued throughout the 20th century. Many major mining companies have owned or
132 Stanley W. Paher, Nevada: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps, (Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1970),341.
133 Robert D. McCracken, Tonopah: The Greatest, the Richest, and the Best Mining Camp in the World (Tonopah, NV:
Nye County Press, 1990),67-68.
101
operated the claim, including Howard Hughes, Newmont Mining Company, and most
recently, Echo Bay, a subsidy of Derrick Mining Company.
Site History
In the mid-1990s Echo Bay Mines "gifted" 113 acres encompassing four of the
original major mining claims, including the original Butler claim, to the town of
Tonopah. The Tonopah Historic Mining Park Foundation was created with the mission
to tum the land into a historic park that would interpret western mining history for the
general public. The unincorporated town of Tonopah owns the actual land, and the
Tonopah Historic Mining Park Foundation, a non-profit 501.C3, runs the park operations,
including site tours, restoration efforts, interpretation and maintenance. The Foundation
also owns the artifacts and features onsite. The Foundation makes all decisions about the
park, with the supervision of the town manager and input from the board and members of
the community. Professionals in historic preservation, industrial archaeology, business
owners, and community activists are all represented on the Board. The park also has the
support of the Department of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno, the Nevada
Mining Association, and the Department of Mines and Minerals, as well as some of the
premier Nevada mining families. Funding comes from these sources as well as grants
and bonds, such as cultural affairs bonds for cultural conservation from the state. The
park has no connection with the Nevada State Parks system. The park as a landscape or
district is also not listed in the National Register of Historic Places; however, the Mitzpah
102
Mine site within the park was listed on the Nevada State Register of Historic Places in
1981.
Landscape Characteristics
Processes
Historical processes associated with the landscape such as mining, milling, and
transportation by railroad or automobile are inactive within the park boundaries.
However, many historical processes that directly relate to the historic landscape exist just
outside the park boundaries. Most notably, the residential and commercial community
that grew directly out of historic mining activities continues to thrive as an active,
evolving landscape into the 21 st century. Incorporating historic processes at the park
have been attempted, one of the most interesting being the annual Nevada State
Championship Mining Competition. This one day event features both professional and
amateur competitive events that reflect early mining techniques, such as drilling holes for
dynamite charges and clearing overburden by shoveling the muck out to be loaded on ore
cars and removed from the site. 134
Contemporary processes dominating the cultural landscape within the park
boundaries focus on preservation, interpretation, and visitor support activities. These
processes have been somewhat fragmentary. There is no general management plan for
the park aside from the original charter. Most preservation and interpretation has been
conducted through historical research on an as needed basis. The Foundation does not
134 Tonopah Historic Mining Park, http://www.tonopahhistoricminingpark.com (accessed April 17,2009).
103
use any particular cultural resource plans as templates for preservation efforts, but
follows the by-laws that outline their general vision for protection and interpretation of
the historic mining resources. A cursory inventory of the major features of the site has
been conducted, but a comprehensive inventory or landscape study has not been
attempted. Within their limited scope and funding, the foundation originally chose to
focus their survey on large, obvious features. There is a desire to add a railway
component to the park, as they have sections of track and an historic trestle, but no rolling
stock onsite. Immediately adjacent on private property is the original foundry for the
mine complex, which the Foundation hopes to eventually purchase and incorporate it into
the park experience. As is the case in many community sponsored preservation efforts,
activities are contingent on funding, and so often end up tailored to fit the needs of
funding sources such as cultural affairs bond issued by the State of Nevada, which
expects a broader scope of practice than pure preservation.
Space
The park retains a remarkable variety of landscape features and artifacts from its
historical period, as well as multiple additions to assist with its interpretive and
recreational missions. The key historic cultural resources at the site, according to the
operators, are its impressive collection of buildings and structures. The structures that
have received the most stabilization and restoration efforts include three complete
hoisting works and the entries to five mine complexes. Other stabilized and interpreted
structures include a "grizzly" or sorting house for ore, a framing house for cutting timber
104
used in mining operations, a powder magazine, one residence, and the last remaining
railroad trestle from the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad. Structural ruins include a large
"glory hole" or caved in mine stope,135 and the ruins of a large stamp milL Additional
physical characteristics that date to the historic period and add to the historic landscape
character are extensive tailings piles, collapsed stopes and shafts, and the barren high
desert vegetation of scrub and sagebrush that has persisted since historic times. All of
these features are connected by an extensive network of graded and undeveloped trails
for hikers and mountain bikers, some of which follow original circulation patterns. 136
Despite the relative continuity of spatial relationships in the park, modem features
and practices have altered some the landscape's historic character. Fences and other
features meant to guide and secure the safety of visitors have been erected. Historic
mining debris has been removed or displayed in designated areas. Some historic
structures have been adapted to support contemporary visitor services, such as exhibit
space for tools, machinery, minerals and other artifacts, a visitor's center, gift shop, and a
small theater. New construction has included building modem bridges over stopes for
interpretive purposes. The main "attraction" at the park consists of a modem tunnel
reconstructed on one of the original Butler discovery sites that ends in a steel cage
overlooking a deep cavern excavated by miners. Thus, while the walking tour allows
visitors to gain access to the landscape and many of its structures and features, it is in part
a controlled experience.
135 Stopes are underground caverns left by excavating the ore body.
136 Tonopah Historic Mining Park, Self-Guided Walking Tour Informational Guide (Tonopah, NV: Tonopah Historic
Mining Park, 2008).
105
Time
The park landscape encompasses most of the historic mining era, from 1901 when
the boom began to 1948 when mining was drastically reduced, as well as its
contemporary incarnation as an historic park. Very little physical landscape evidence
from the intervening 40 years is represented, or if it exists, has not been interpreted or
highlighted fully. However, landscape continuity expands once one leaves the park
boundaries. Tonopah is still, in essence, a living mining town not far removed from its
mining past. Though mining operations in the town proper have ceased, mining
continues in surrounding areas, and mining remains a large contributor to Nevada's
economy. The town of Tonopah itself has retained much of its historic mining camp
character, including its original layout and circulation patterns, and many of its oldest
iconic buildings. The topography of the mountains and the accumulated mine waste
dominates the vistas. Many of the families who still live and work in the town are
descendents of the settlers and miners, if not miners themselves. The park is thus just one
element of a larger living cultural landscape (figure 5.18).
-----------_._--
106
Figure 5.18. Mitzpah Mine in Tonopah, Nevada (circa 1937). The physical features
and relationship of the mine to the surrounding town remains much the same today as in
the historic period. Photograph from Stanley W. Paher, Nevada: Ghost Towns and
Mining Camps, (Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1970),335.
Change
The amount and rate of change in the park landscape is somewhat contradictory.
On one hand, amazingly little has changed since mining operations ceased; many of the
original major mining features and structures remain, though in a dormant state, and have
been preserved through stabilization and restoration. The operators of the park have
taken a cue from Bodie, professing a philosophy of "arrested decay" over complete
restoration, aiming to intervene in the historic fabric as little as possible in order to retain
the ambiance of a tum of the century mining site, though without committing to a
107
particular representation of anyone era. 137 This entails keeping the landscape, exterior
and interior features, and artifacts intact and in situ as much as possible. On the other, the
park website directly celebrates the changing uses and processes occurring at the site,
publishing explicit comments such as, "The grounds are constantly changing. New
exhibits are added frequently and restoration of existing buildings is ongoing." 138 This
statement appears contradictory compared to the stated preservation philosophy;
however, it is followed by donation and visitation information, indicating that while the
park is marketing its unchanging ambiance, it also wants to attract repeat visitors with the
expectation that they might see something new in the future. Change is thus integral to
the contemporary interpretation of the historic landscape.
While crafted as an historic park, the Tonopah Historic Mining Park has also
focused its attention on becoming a full service community center to stay socially and
fiscally viable. For instance, in addition to adding basic infrastructure such as trails and
benches, as small auditorium was constructed in one the historic buildings that is open to
the public as a "cultural center" for meetings and events. For recreation, the park allows
mountain biking on its trail system outside the historic core in addition to the established
hiking trails. Contemporary needs have thus become the driving force of change at the
park.
137 Ronald M. James, Gwendolyn Clancy, Shawn Hall, Vern Burk, Mark Ryzdynski, and Jeanette Clark, Built
Treasures ofSouthern Nevada, VHS, Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs (Carson City, NV: Nevada Department of
Cultural Affairs, 2002).
138 Tonopah Historic Mining Park, http://www.tonopahhistoricminingpark.com (accessed April 17,2009).
108
Summary
Landscape preservation at Tonopah Historic Mining Park is contradictory. On the
one hand, it aims to preserve its landscape features in a state of "arrested decay," which
precludes the chance for expressing change and the passage of time. Preservation goals
at the park have also proceeded in a relatively traditional manner, focusing most efforts
on prominent structural features. Spatially, it retains a variety oflandscape features from
its active mining era, as well as its proximity and prominence to the historic mining town
that grew around it. However, the park has not resisted change in the way that Bodie has.
Attracting visitor interest and visitor needs guide processes at the site, and these
processes are the result of a dynamic interaction with the community. This has led to the
creation of new features such as the mining tunnel attraction, and the adaptation of older
features such as the community auditorium. Contemporary activities such as mountain
biking and other forms of recreation are celebrated as primary characteristics of the site.
Change is celebrated and avoided simultaneously. It may be that community supported
ventures such as this must rely on this balancing act to keep the preservation experience
viable.
109
Argo GoJd M.iIJ & M.useum
Figure 5.19. Argo Gold Mill and Museum. Photo courtesy ofwww.denver.org.
Fundamentals
• Location: Idaho Springs, Clear Creek County, Colorado
• Owner/Operator: Bob Maxwell
• Level: Individual/Private
It 0
Location
The Argo Gold Mill & Museum is located on Clear Creek in Idaho Springs,
Colorado, west of Denver on U.S. Highway 70 at the heart of the original 1859 gold
strike that precipitated the "great Rocky Mountain Gold Rush" of the 1860s (figure 5.20).
The mill is located on the slopes of Seaton Mountain on the north bank of Clear Creek,
within the municipal boundaries of the town of Idaho Springs (figures 5.21 and 5.22).
I I 'j
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Figure 5.20. Location of Argo Gold Mill and Museum. Map adapted from
www.nationalatlas.gov.
111
Figure 5.21. Approximate Boundaries of Argo Gold Mill and Museum Site.
Map adapted from www.maps.google.com.
Ill: 0 111-,. :"1, 1I1l1.hll~·
,
"1''''\11 0 ,..., II,." •• ,. HUll. taw
"1"1"
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Figure 5.22. Site plan of Argo Gold Mill and Museum. Map drawn by the author
from aerial photographs courtesy ofwww.maps.google.com. Scale is approximate.
112
Historical Overview
From 1859 to 1861 central Colorado boomed with mining activity. Over thirteen
thousand mining claims were made in the vicinity of Idaho Springs, and by 1902, there
were over three hundred hard rock lode mines being worked in the Idaho Spring area. 139
Many of the most successful mines were on Seaton Mountain separating Idaho Springs
from the nearby town of Central City. As the mines grew deeper, transporting ore and
workers became extremely difficult. The solution was to build a tunnel through the
mountain beneath the mines as a way to provide drainage, ventilation, and transportation
to the entire system of gold mines in the region. Constructed by financier Samuel
Newhouse from 1896 to 1910, the finished tunnel stretched over 4 miles and connected
hundreds of mines which used the narrow gage tracks in the tunnel to haul ore and labor.
Once the richest deposits had been depleted, the Argo Mill was built in 1913 at the
tunnel's main portal in Idaho Springs to process lower grade ores corning from the mines.
The mill was once one of the largest stamp mills operating in the United States, and was
considered state-of-the-art at the time of construction. The mill complex also included a
large wooden cribbing system for loading ore, extensive waste dumps, and auxiliary
buildings for compressors, bunks and offices. 140 Together, the Argo Tunnel and Mill
provided an efficient and affordable system for handling and transporting ore that made it
possible for mines in this region to continue production at a level that would have
139 Argo Gold Mine and Mill, "History of the Mighty Argo," http://www.historicargotours.comJhistory.html (accessed
April 18, 2009).
J40Argo Tunnel and Mill, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, 1976.
113
otherwise been too costly. In 1943, a mining accident in one of the lateral shafts flooded
the tunnel and killed four men, effectively closing down the entire operation.
Site History
The mill was abandoned until 1976 when the current owner, James Maxwell,
purchased the site to protect it from vandalism and restore portions of the mill as an
educational museum. The original intent was to transfer the property to the city or
county, however this never transpired. Instead, Maxwell renovated the mill, and opened
it to the public for educational tours. The property was listed on the National Register of
Historic Places in 1977. The site has been leased out to different museum operators over
the years with varying degrees of success. Bob Maxwell, son of James Maxwell, took
over operations in 2000. The mine is open from mid-April to mid-October and provides
winter tours by appointment, receiving mostly international travelers and school field
trips as its primary visitors.
Landscape Characteristics
Process
Though the Argo Gold Mill no longer operates, the historic milling process
remains a central focus of the site. The mission of the museum is to provide a fun and
educational tour through the mill that interprets the historical process of hard rock mining
in the region, and the technological process of milling ore for gold in particular. The tour
starts in the "history room," where local mining history is covered in a brief video and
114
interpreters provide a mining equipment demonstration. The visitors then take a bus up
the hill above the mill to the portal of the Double Eagle Mine and the Argo Tunnel. Here
a few landscape features not directly associated with the mill are interpreted, such as
tailings piles and the remains of ore cars that delivered ore from the mine to the mill.
Visitors then proceed downhill through five well-interpreted stories of the mill showing
the process of milling ores, from crushing to amalgamation to concentration. The tour
ends at the bottom level of the mill, which has been converted into a museum displaying
ore samples and mining equipment. Here visitors can also experience another historic
process in a modem setting by panning for gold or gemstones, and keeping their finds for
the price of admission.
While the historic milling process drives interpretation at the site, attracting and
managing visitors dominates contemporary processes. Preservation is a necessary part of
this process, as the historic physical features provide the basis for all other activities, but
does not appear to be a driving factor of site management. For instance, there is no
overarching management or preservation strategy guiding preservation activities at the
site. According to the owner, there has been no comprehensive inventory of resources or
landscape features at the site aside from the National Register nomination. Despite
listing on the National Register, the owners choose not to consult the Secretary of the
Interior's Guidelines for the Treatment of Historic Properties for ongoing stabilization
and preservation activities. While they indicated that they had explored them when
seeking funding in the past, they decided not to follow through because they found the
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requirements too restrictive for their purposes. 141 When maintenance is necessary, the
owner fixes what is broken. Most often this includes replacing corrugated metal
sheathing and cleaning up the site after the winter snowmelt. The museum employs local
residents with an interest in history; most are not professionally trained in preservation or
museum services. The owners advertise the mill on a website, and it makes nearly every
list published on historical attractions in the region.
Space
Historically, the Argo Mill, along with a network of train tracks and loading
systems, dominated the landscape where it sat at the mouth of the Argo Tunnel.
Sandwiched between the steep slopes of Seaton Mountain and the bank of Clear Creek, it
was a visual manifestation of the many hours of labor and miles of ore excavated from
the surrounding mountains (figure 5.23). The mill continues to have a striking presence
today; however, it has been integrated into the contemporary town of Idaho Springs,
surrounded by modem roads and residential and commercial construction.
Because the mill served the extensive Argo Tunnel, it is necessarily connected to
an extensive mining landscape beyond the current property boundaries. The mill owners
have made attempts at interpreting related landscape features with varying degrees of
success. For instance, in 2003 Bob Maxwell attempted to create a "Ghost Town Tour" as
part of the attraction to the mill. He would take visitors in a four wheel drive SUV up the
nearby colorfully named "Oh My God Road" to some ofthe mining areas serviced by the
141 Bob Maxwell, Interview, February 12,2009.
116
Argo Tunnel. Major sites on the tour included prominent historic mines and mining
camps, as well as various cemeteries. Though visitors showed a lot of interest, he had to
stop the tours in 2005 because he did not have the operating capacity to run tours and the
museum at the same time. 142
Figure 5.23. Historic Argo Mill under construction in 1913. Note its proximity to
Clear Creek, the railroad track paralleling the creek, and the alteration of the hillside
to support the structure. Photograph courtesy of www.historicargotours.com.
Of course, most consideration of the landscape focuses on its primary attraction: the
mill. The mill itself is in good condition and retains many of its historic features and
machinery, including the floatation cells, concentrating tables, and cyanide leaching bins,
though the stamps and balls have been removed. The bottom level of the mill serves as
142 Bob Maxwell, Interview, February 12, 2009.
117
the museum. A variety of large milling equipment is on display in the yard outside the
museum; however, most of this equipment has been brought from elsewhere and is not
original to the mill. One original auxiliary structure remains to the west of the mill, and
consists of a brick and concrete structure that served as the electric transformer plant to
the tunnel and mill. Additional historic features associated with the mill and tunnel
include the tunnel portal (sealed from entry), the Double Eagle Mine, milling and mining
waste piles, and an assortment of mining and milling equipment. Contemporary features
include a false front wooden structure for visitor services, a short section of reconstructed
railroad track complete with ore cars, a small gazebo, and gates, fencing, and other
barriers to distinguish the property boundaries. Vegetation type and density on the site
consists of sparse pine forest and sagebrush common to high desert environments, and
appears to be similar to that in historic photographs. It is unclear whether circulation
patterns within the site boundaries follow historic paths; however, Riverside Drive which
passes in front of the mill replaced the old railroad tracks.
Time
The expression of time at the Argo Gold Mill & Museum is ambiguous. On one
hand, the landscape represents its historical character rather well; the mill is in good
condition, sits in its original location, and is surrounded by intact mining landscape
features such as contour cuts and tailings piles. However, adaptation and demolition of
many of the auxiliary structures have also made the landscape a skeleton of what it once
was. Contemporary activities such as the adjacent street parking and the close proximity
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of non-historic neighboring structures bring the present to the forefront of the temporal
context. Though the operators have attempted to show historical processes through
original historic fabric, the site has been thoroughly adapted for present use. The
landscape thus reflects its current incarnation as a historic attraction rather than its past
period of an active milL
Change
Change in this landscape, while evident through the loss and addition of various
structural features, appears most vividly through the changing activities and relationships
towards the site. Physically, most of the historic mining features related to the tunnel and
mill existed until quite recently. The main changes to the site took the form of addition,
not demolition. However, in 1997, the EPA tore down some auxiliary buildings to create
a water treatment plant for contaminated water seeping from the Argo Tunnel, most
notably the historic cribbing that was part of the network for loading ore into trains and
the old mining company office. While this was a necessary safety measure, it undeniably
impacted the spatial character and feeling of the site; a large two-story corrugated metal
structure and access road now sits adjacent to the mill on the location of the cribbing and
office building.
Proximity to the town has also changed the physical and psychological
relationship of the mill landscape to the wider community. Though never far from town
historically, the site was an active place of industry and was treated as such. Today, it is
perceived as a place of recreation and leisure, where town residents can walk their dogs
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or go for a jog. This change has caused tension between the town ofIdaho Springs and
the owner, who feels that the city and many residents do not respect the private property
boundaries of the site. While the owner recognizes that it is a large site that he cannot
keep completely off-limits, he considers unauthorized use of the property trespassing, and
worries that it can be dangerous. 143 The owner also indicated that he often receives
criticism from residents for not fully restoring the buildings or making machines in the
mill operable, though the museum appears quite successful with visitors. The change
from active industry to a place of education and recreation has thus created expectations
of what the landscape represents, and how it should be used and presented among the
local community.
Summary
Though the Argo Gold Mill and Museum retains its historic setting and overall
form, attention to landscape characteristics does not appear to be a factor in the
preservation approach to the site. Preservation considerations are based on functional
needs associated with serving visitors and personal choices by the owner. Space, time
and process are addressed, but not explicitly treated within established preservation
guidelines. Landscape dynamics at the site relate mostly to negotiating changes in the
operation and use of the site among the various stakeholders. A kind of self-imposed
isolation exists, with personal values of property ownership and visitor attraction taking
precedence over the potential inclusiveness of the landscape.
143 Bob Maxwell, Interview, February 12, 2009.
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CHAPTER VI
DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE
The case studies described in Chapter V illustrate the variety of ways both
managers and visitors perceive and value historic mining landscapes in the western
regions of the United States. From a sense of adventure and reward for accessing and
preserving remote and unique landscapes, to varying levels of enthusiasm and contention
among local communities, these mining landscapes represent the intricacies of preserving
the complicated legacies of historic industrial places. The values guiding preservation
decisions at the various levels of management profoundly impact the way each site is
preserved and presented to the public. Each site applies the landscape values and
characteristics outlined in this study in quite different ways, both consciously and
casually. While all preservation approaches and cultural landscapes are specific to their
particular contexts, some correlations can be made among preservation practices and the
values generally associated with levels of management at these historic industrial sites.
Table 6.1 summarizes how the landscape characteristics ofprocess, space, time and
change are represented at the case study sites. The following discussion articulates how
landscape values diverge or overlap with the values motivating the managing practices at
the case study sites.
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Table 6.1. Expression of Landscape Characteristics at Kennecott NHL, Bodie SHP, Tonopah
Historic Mining Park, and Argo Mill & Museum.
Kennecott National Historic Landmark
Landscape preservation practices at
Kennecott pay the clearest attention to
landscape values and characteristics. Process,
space, time and change are all represented in
the landscape.
Photo: NPS
Bodie State Historic Park
Landscape preservation practices at Bodie
spend a great deal of effort resisting change
through careful management of time and
space. Processes are hidden.
Photo: Don Pcting
Tonopah Historic Mining Park
Although landscape preservation at Tonopah
focuses on protecting space, process and
change have become a central component of
the conservation system. The expression of
time is ambiguous in this landscape.
Photo: Tonopah Historic Mining Park
Argo Gold Mill and Museum
The Argo Gold Mill and Museum exhibits a
narrow interpretation of all four landscape
characteristics. There is some attention to
process and space; however, time and change
appear disconnected from preservation
practice at Argo.
Photo: Argo Gold Mill and Muscum
122
Divergence
First, the motivations for preservation must be examined. As outlined in the
introductory chapters, the basic protection and preservation of the resources is a common
value at all levels and the first step in the preservation process. However, motivations for
this attitude vary. At the Federal level, and at the State level to a large extent, these
landscapes must be evaluated and considered for protection by law. Preservation is
frequently policy motivated, and relies on established guidelines and regulations to drive
preservation efforts. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of
Historic Properties is the primary vehicle to which these places look for guidance. The
standards propose four courses of action: preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and
reconstruction. Preservation focuses on the continuous maintenance and repair of
existing historic materials and retention of a property's form as it has evolved over time.
This treatment implies some level of continuity, if only in the physical form.
Rehabilitation acknowledges the need to alter or add to a historic property to meet
continuing or changing uses while retaining the property's historic character. In other
words, it returns the resource to a state of utility. Restoration depicts a property at a
particular period of time in its history, while removing evidence of other periods.
Restoration is the process of recovering a particular time and place. Reconstruction re-
creates vanished or non-surviving portions of a property for interpretive purposes. While
following these guidelines is encouraged at the local and personal level, this does not
always happen, as the case studies show. In these places preservation is often
instrumental for other purposes, such as community revitalization or commercial
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enterprise. Though preservation in most places is never "pure" and incorporates a variety
of treatments, the values behind cultural landscape preservation mayor may not coincide
with established treatment strategies.
As might be expected, the Kennecott National Historic Landmark illustrates the
closest adherence to the Secretary of the Interior's treatment guidelines, as well as
cultural landscape values. As a national historic site, Kennecott is expected to integrate
federal guidelines into the preservation process, including guidelines for the evaluation
and treatment ofhistoric landscapes as discussed in Chapter III. It incorporates a policy
of stabilization and preservation in conjunction with selective restoration and
rehabilitation. In this sense, it has become the "crown jewel" for the National Park
Service with regard to mining landscape preservation. It is by far the most successful and
well-developed historic mining landscape preservation effort in the National Park system.
The undertaking of a Cultural Landscape Report for use as a planning document indicates
attention to the importance of understanding and managing the site as part of a holistic
landscape. The landscape characteristics of process, space, time and change are well
illustrated at Kennecott through management practices such as zoning contemporary uses
for compatibility with historic activities, and marking the distinction between past and
present fabric so as not to falsify history. The partnerships with community members
also attest to consideration of stakeholder values, which is essential for incorporating the
creative element of landscape preservation. Thus values associated with the cultural
landscape, such as transformation and cooperation, are being addressed at Kennecott. In
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general, Kennecott appears successful at integrating cultural landscape values into its
preservation strategies.
Unfortunately, Kennecott is an exception to the rule. Despite places like
Kennecott, it is generally agreed that the National Park Service has had limited success at
conserving and interpreting the mining experience and technological history of the
west. 144 According to Susan Dolan of the National Park Service, unless the mining
landscape is front and center, inventory and evaluation of mining resources is usually
considered secondary to other amenities, especially natural resources. 145 Stewardship of
wilderness and natural resource areas is still the primary focus of the National Park
Service, especially in the west where cultural landscapes and resources tend to be
ephemeral, vernacular, and ethnographic. Only three park units have been established
with the specific purpose of preserving mining heritage. The Klondike Gold Rush
National Historical Park and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, both in Alaska,
commemorate the Alaskan gold rush of 1898. Keweenaw National Historic Park in
Michigan celebrates the significant copper mines of the upper Midwest. Even Kennecott
is just one component of a National Park with significant mining heritage that was
created as a wilderness area. For example, Death Valley National Park in southern
California and Nevada has an abundance of historically significant mining landscapes
within its boundaries, and while inventories and National Register nominations for
particular elements of their mining legacy have been conducted, there has been no
144 Larry M. Dilsaver, "National Significance: Representation of the West in the National Park System," in Western
Places, American Myths: How We Think About the West, ed. Gary 1. Hauslader (Reno, NV: University of Nevada
Press, 2003), 124; Susan Dolan, Interview, March II, 2009; Steve Peterson, Interview, February 5, 2009.
145 Susan Dolan, Interview, March 11, 2009.
125
attempt at an integral cultural landscape study.146 While this is partially due to the
dispersed nature of the mining landscape and the sheer quantity of sites, it illustrates how
cultural landscape values, especially for industrial landscapes, do not take precedence at
many sites at the federal level. Increased consideration has been given to mines in recent
years because of the "Abandoned Mineral Lands" initiative that aim to make historic
mining landscapes safe for the public through remediation activities. 147 While this has
led to increased inventory and mapping of historic mining landscapes, recommendations
for preservation treatment or cultural landscape studies have received little attention.
Thus landscape values are both promoted and ignored at many national historic mining
sites.
Bodie State Historic Park is the "crown jewel" of historic mining landscape
preservation in the California State Parks system for completely different reasons. Bodie
undeniably possesses an incredible historic landscape in the empirical sense. Bodie has
more extant, unaltered features and buildings than most other mining areas, retains its
setting and spatial associations, has not been encroached upon by development, and
contemporary mining activity has been kept from the core of the historic mining area. As
Francaviglia so eloquently states, "Bodie is preservation as theater, and its landscape is so
provocative that the drama needs no actors, only a stage of deserted buildings." 148 In
other words, focusing on historical, evidential and commemorative values has proven
146 u.s. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Death Valley National Park General Management Plan,
April 2002 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2002), 40.
147 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, "Abandoned Mineral Lands,"
http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/aml/index.cfm#reclaim (accessed April 20, 2009).
148 Francaviglia, Hard Places, 177.
126
quite successful at Bodie. However, it does not fully express landscape values because
its characteristics specifically focus on space and time over process and change. Because
of this, the policy of arrested decay may actually confuse the purpose of landscape
preservation and falsify the true history of the place. On the other hand, the practice of
arrested decay has become a force in itself, inspiring a unique kind of preservation
process separate from the standard four treatments listed previously. However outwardly
static it appears, arrested decay is actually a very proactive process. Bodie is an ongoing
stabilization project, constantly evolving as time passes and new challenges arise. The
challenge for Bodie, then, is to find the balance between the values that have thus far
contributed to its unique sense of place and the incorporation of landscape values that
embrace change. The recent expansion of Bodie's boundaries beyond the town site to
include its entire cultura11andscape provides an opportunity to begin this process.
Most mining landscapes operated by State parks do not follow the same extreme
preservation philosophy as Bodie. For example, the Empire Mine State Historic Park,
also in the California State Parks system, employs a much more typical preservation
program, offering mine tours and active interpretation and demonstrations through a
restored and rehabilitated landscape. The Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area in
Oregon takes another approach, blending restoration and interpretation of the large
dredge that dominates its landscape with reclamation of the mining landscape itself.
Nevertheless, Bodie has become the standard to which many State-driven mining
landscape preservation efforts are compared because of its prominence in the public
imagination. Its program of "arrested decay" has proven very influential, inspiring other
127
managers to consider the process for their own preservation activities. Though it
occupies a unique position in State-driven preservation of historic mining landscapes,
Bodie also represents how attention to landscape values can vary widely at this level of
organization.
Local projects such as the Tonopah Historic Mining Park illustrate another level
of cultural landscape understanding. The preservation of a wide range of historic mining
features, the close proximity to the landscape through the walking tour activity, and the
accessibility of the buildings, allows the visitor to experience the depth of time, space and
change that has occurred to the historic landscape. The park utilizes an assortment of
preservation strategies; they consult the Secretary of the Interior's treatment standards as
well as use the term "arrested decay" to describe their preservation philosophy.
However, their activities are much more active and change-oriented than these
descriptions suggest. At Tonopah, arrested decay is really a pseudonym for stabilization
and preservation in situ; there is no attempt to freeze and maintain a particular sense of
time as there is in Bodie. New construction and restoration has also taken place.
Preservation in Tonopah provides a backdrop for other values at play, such as enhancing
the local identity of place, and provides a platform to share that identity with others.
According to Mimi Rodden, Board Member of the Tonopah Historic Mining Park
Foundation and former Nevada SHPO, most of the community, especially the mining
families, enjoys the park and the fact that their history has been preserved. 149 In fact,
familial ties with the landscape resources in the form of verbal and financial support from
149 Mimi Rodden, Interview, February 6, 2009.
128
prominent mining families have been vital to gaining community support for the park and
its preservation activities. This park is also considered important to the community
because it allows modem miners to better connect with their history in a place where
mining technology and processes are still prominent, though considerably altered. ISO In
addition, the park provides a sense of place for the community by acting as a community
center. As described, recreation unrelated to the educational value of the place is
encouraged, as is use of the space for other community events such as conferences and
non-mining related presentations. Thus, while based in a preservation-oriented mission,
Tonopah is attentive to change and process, though it is not clearly articulated in the way
it is at places like Kennecott.
An important component of landscape preservation at this level is the need for
partnerships to keep the effort fiscally and feasibly possible. Funding is a concern for all
historic preservation projects; however, it appears to be especially crucial for these small,
non-profit preservation ventures that are not automatically part of the state or federal
budget process. For many, this means cooperating with and incorporating the needs and
values of tourist, economic, and other land management agencies. In Tonopah,
partnerships between local governments, historical societies, and foundations have
provided one possible combination of resources and expertise. Joining government
stewardship and support with avocational efforts has provided a practical way to drive
resource plmming and preservation processes. Most other successful volunteer-based
efforts follow this pattern. For instance, in central Idaho the White Knob Historical
150 Ibid.
-- - ------------
129
Preservation Committee partnered with the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest
Service, and private property owners to create an off-road vehicle tour of Mackay Mine
Hill, a historic mining landscape with a variety of historic mining features that covers
nearly 20 miles. While initial preservation efforts came from the citizens of the nearby
town of Mackay who wanted to stop the salvage and vandalism of the heritage in their
backyard, sustained effort from multiple parties has been necessary to keep the venture
successful. Balancing the values of numerous stakeholders shifts preservation at these
places from a static practice of commemoration to a generative process supporting
community vitality and identity.
The Argo Gold Mill and Museum clearly illustrates how personal values can
influence preservation practice. Though it has many of the same physical characteristics
and features as the other cases discussed, the operators have taken a fairly minimal
approach to preservation that only peripherally addresses the cultural landscape and its
associated values. Preservation of the site was motivated both by altruism - the owners
clearly did not want such a grand historic artifact to go to ruin - and by the potential of
the site as a tourist attraction. Unlike at Tonopah, the operators did not seek community
involvement, or obtain expertise in preservation or mining history to shape their
preservation practices. This has created tension between the operators and the
community, as well as confuses the goals of interpreting the site as a cultural landscape
and using the site as a means to an end. On one hand, it appears that the operators of the
Argo Mill take their mission as an educational attraction very seriously, as the annual
field trips of regional elementary schools attest. Interpretation of the material culture and
130
geology of mining, as well as the historic milling process, comprise a comprehensive
educational program. However, minimal attention is paid to the networks involved that
made the mines successful, and many of the artifacts on site are not original historic
fabric, but imports assembled for serving the prescribed interpretive purposes. Even
conventional values associated with preservation such as commemoration and the
primacy of material evidence have thus become secondary to the owner defined agenda
for the site.
This is especially evident in the lack of the use or consideration of historic
preservation guidelines, even for stabilization and maintenance of the site. While listing
a place on the National Register does not automatically protect it or prescribe regulatory
action, it does provide incentive for the owner to carefully consider their impacts on the
site, as well as a framework for best preservation practices as outlined in published
guidelines and criteria. Instead, at places like the Argo Gold Mill and Museum, National
Register listing appears to be more of a marketing tool ("National Historic Site!") than a
premise for preservation practice. In contrast, the city of Idaho Springs surrounding the
mill celebrates and promotes its mining heritage through an aggressive preservation
agenda that aims to preserve its historic commercial district and housing stock using
federal guidelines and incentives such as the Main Street Program to preserve its culture
as a historic mining community. 151 Interestingly, the town of Idaho Springs includes the
Argo Mill as part of its cultural landscape in planning documents; however, the owners of
the mill choose to keep themselves independent from community planning efforts. The
151 Idaho Springs Comprehensive Plan, Adopted by the Idaho Springs City Council, Resolution 12, Series 28 (City of
Idaho Springs, Colorado, July 14,2008).
131
values of property ownership and visitor attraction have thus taken precedence over the
potential inclusiveness of landscape values at Argo, disconnecting the characteristics of
process, time, space and change from community attitudes and other contributing
landscape elements.
Convergence
Despite the many diverging values that influence preservation at each of these
sites, some values do overlap. One common value running through preservation practices
at each site is service, though the definition of service appears to vary with intention.
Visitor experience is a focus at all levels; however, attending to visitor needs also varies
with the values driving preservation activities at the site. For instance, a common theme
at each case study is the experience of discovery. The sites are managed to allow visitors
to immerse themselves in the landscape, rather than simply observe it from behind a
velvet rope. Signage and plaques are kept to a minimum; interpretation occurs through
secondary methods such as guided tours and the tactile sensations of moving through the
physical setting. In a sense, this is an excellent embodiment of landscape values; visitor
experience becomes part of the continuing process in the given landscape. However,
each site manages the experience according to different values. Kennecott, for example
pays great attention to making sure past and present details are clearly articulated. Bodie,
on the other hand, hides change and process to protect the air of abandonment that
provides its ghost town allure. In Tonopah, the experience fills multiple purposes, from
132
education to tourism to recreation. At Argo, the visitor event is relatively structured
through a formal tour.
A related value evident at all four sites is attention to what Steve Peterson
describes as "atmospherics.,,152 This concept refers to the importance of the intangible
qualities of feeling and impression elicited by the landscape. As discussed in Chapter IV,
many historic mining landscape preservation efforts fail to express the essential qualities
of the landscape through over-zealous attention to only one element, such as machinery
or commercial structures, or a mis-application of National Register criteria and
preservation treatment strategies to landscape features that do not fit conventional
categories. Most of the sites described in this study focus on protective stabilization
measures over restoration or rehabilitation in order to tamper as little as possible with
what they consider the "atmosphere" of their landscape. Of course, what qualifies as
"atmosphere" is different in different places. Places such as Bodie take the interpretation
of their perceived atmosphere to one extreme, whereas at places like the Argo Mill, a
controlled environment of learning and amusement takes precedence over inherent
historic or aesthetic qualities of place. Kennecott attempts to balance the impression of
the passage of time with current needs and uses, selectively cleaning up parts of its
landscape while allowing others to continue to change, while Tonopah tries to blend an
atmosphere of the past with the present by juxtaposing historic features with
contemporary uses. Though each approach arises from different motivations, the
potential of the emotional impact for preserving and understanding historic mining
152 Steve Peterson, Interview, February 12,2009.
133
landscapes remains a central value they all share. At its best, retaining the ambiance of
historic mining places can lead to the expression of landscape values by preserving and
interpreting the complicated, dirty, and changing material and processes that have
accumulated over time.
Values at some sites converge more than at others. For instance, Kennecott
National Historic Landmark and Tonopah Historic Mining Park are rather similar, despite
the distance in managerial levels. They both place value on preserving historic fabric,
and through this process, creating or maintaining a sense of place and identity for the
landscape. Neither site is intent on restoring the landscape to a particular era, instead
concentrating on contemporary uses and interpretation as drivers of preservation activity.
Nevertheless, preservation strategies and values follow a more conformist route at
Kennecott than at Tonopah. For instance, though attentive to the passage oftime,
Kennecott still arranges its preservation activities around a framework defined by well-
researched and documented periods of significance. Most sites also cannot follow the
path of the National Park Service at Kennecott and conduct a cultural landscape
inventory and report early in the acquisition process. At small parks such as Tonopah,
planning often happens sporadically, focusing on immediate issues rather than long range
operational goals, even when they try to incorporate federal guidelines and criteria. The
discrepancy in levels of funding and expertise available to each place consequently
influences the way values may be expressed in these landscapes.
The values expressed at Bodie State Historic Park fall somewhere between
Kennecott and Tonopah, while the principles driving preservation at the Argo Gold Mill
134
and Museum appear to be the most independent of the four. As a State park, Bodie is
required to incorporate official preservation language and strategies into their
preservation practices. It has a very clear mandate to protect and preserve the fabric and
ambiance of one of America's favorite ghost towns, and has planning documents and
operational procedures in place to implement their strategies. However, Bodie has also
chosen to forge its own identity in the world of cultural resource management through its
unique preservation strategy. In this way, Bodie has much in common with the Argo
Gold Mill and Museum. Both sites are relatively self-contained and pursue their own
preservation agendas, though with very different resources and directives. At Argo,
being self-contained means being independent from regulatory burden. Following
established preservation guidelines is resisted because it has little bearing on the bottom
line of sustaining the attraction and service that supports the enterprise.
The expression of landscape values is complicated but evident in all four of the
historic mining landscapes examined in this study. The level of managerial involvement
has a genuine impact on the standards and philosophies driving preservation of the
historic landscape. The distinction between public and private ownership and operation
appears to be huge factor influencing how historic landscapes are preserved under
stewardship of those entities. Whereas places at the Federal and State, and to some
extent, the local levels, explicitly consider the cultural landscape in their preservation
practices, expressing landscape characteristics appears to be an irrelevant academic
exercise for private practitioners who have a narrower preservation agenda. Even so, the
landscape characteristics discussed throughout this study are visible to varying degrees at
135
all of the sites, suggesting that landscape values are important to preservation
practitioners at all levels, whether articulated or not. Using lessons learned from these
case studies, the concluding discussion will consider the potential for incorporating
cultural landscape values into the preservation of historic industrial landscapes in general.
136
CHAPTER VII
MANAGING CHANGE
This study has examined how preservation practice both reflects and defines the
elements ofthe historic industrial landscape that people care about and why. The visual
prominence, vast scale, and profound impact on the human condition and natural
environment have placed these landscapes at the forefront of the heritage agenda, as well
as made them primary targets for reclamation and reuse as educational, recreational, and
economic vehicles. Protecting historic industrial landscapes thus brings together a
variety of values that must find balance in order to accurately reflect their dynamic
nature. Values are influenced by many factors, such as the level of stakeholder
involvement, government rules and regulations, and personal perception. However, in
most cases, some values take precedence over others, creating an incomplete picture of
the significance and impact of the historic industrial place. This study has explored how
this issue might be resolved through investigating the values various stakeholders bring to
industrial heritage landscapes and how they impact preservation practice.
The mining landscapes examined in this study illustrate how incorporating values
that reflect the dynamic nature of the industrial landscape can be limited by some
established preservation practices and criteria. Mining landscapes are especially prone to
dramatic fluctuations in both the physical and emotional forms they elicit that challenge
137
many established preservation agendas. For example, modem technologies and open pit
techniques have allowed historically exploited ore deposits to be revisited, threatening
almost complete destruction of historic landscape features. In other instances, the value
of reclamation often overcomes the value of preservation, often removing some or all
historic landscape features considered hazardous or incompatible with future uses. As in
all historic places, neglect leads to attrition of the landscape by natural and cultural
forces. Perhaps most relevant to this study, even the act of preservation itself can harm
the landscape, transforming a place into something that does not reflect its true story by
simplifying its changing, complex nature. Adding to this difficulty is that most historic
mining landscapes, like many other historic industrial places, are vernacular by nature,
making them more difficult to define in traditional terms. While the National Register
criteria does allow for description of places in terms of associative values and cultural
meanings, the complexity of values and processes affecting the industrial landscape tends
to challenge the use of these established categorization schemes.
Fortunately, preservation professionals have come to the conclusion that defining
cultural landscapes through conventional standards is counterproductive. Efforts have
been made to alter statutory language to better reflect the perceptions and values driving
cultural landscape preservation efforts at the international and national levels. In the
United States, the creation of guidelines by the National Park Service, such as National
Register Bulletin 30 and procedures for preparing cultural landscape reports,
acknowledge that the National Register's formulation around values associated with
historic architecture is not sufficient for describing the dynamic nature of a cultural
138
landscape. Unfortunately, much of this has simply meant adding criteria and
characteristics to the existing landscape preservation framework, rather than rethinking
the framework itself. By attempting to adhere to established categories, cultural
landscape management techniques still tend to make decisions along a continuum that
places the highest significance on aesthetic and material values over intangible and other
cultural values. 153 Cultural landscape preservation may have become more attentive to
historic landscape processes and include a wider variety of significant landscape features,
yet the contextual focus often lacks a process for incorporating contemporary values and
future uses. As demands and values associated with heritage sites change with political,
economic, and social currents, heritage managers often struggle with how to adapt their
preservation strategies to accommodate these shifts. Historic cultural landscapes, and
especially historic industrial landscapes, would thus be better viewed through their own
evaluative process that expands the definition of time and space to include values and
concepts that embrace process and change from the outset of heritage site protection and
development.
Determining how historic landscape managers plan for and direct process and
change becomes a central focus of this new management objective. It requires a shift in
perception, understanding preservation not as a static enterprise but as an active process
shaping the landscape in the present. Industrial landscape preservation encompasses
much more than conserving historic fabric; it also includes preserving and making visible
evidence of process, identity, and complexity of meaning through activities such as
153 Melnick, "Considering Nature and Culture," 24.
139
interpretation and visitor services. Planning for landscape preservation must therefore be
comprehensive, flexible and creative in order to allow for the expression of ongoing
change and process. This means continual attention to a wide range of needs and values.
As seen in the historic mining landscapes presented in this study, landscape preservation
(or lack of it) is based on a variety of decisions and values that extend far beyond the
presence of historic material. When all the stakeholders involved recognize that the
industrial landscape has changed and will continue to change, articulating time and
process becomes an essential part of the preservation agenda. What landscapes we
protect and how we protect them influences future experience of the heritage place.
Preserving historic industrial landscapes must thus look to the future as much as the past,
which includes incorporating values beyond those associated with traditional preservation
practice.
Understanding how stakeholders at the local, regional, national, and even
international scales bring different values to the preservation process comprises a vital
component of this agenda. Many of the commemorative, aesthetic and scientific values
promoted at higher levels of organization tend to dissipate in the face of economic and
personal concerns at lower levels. Values within levels are also susceptible to change
and negotiation. For example, preservation advocacy at the federal may appear strong by
virtue of the many guidelines, codes, and regulatory acts, but sometimes weakens in the
face of competing federal needs and values. At Kennecott, the value of environmental
remediation measures dictated by government regulations, such as the capping of tailings
piles and the removal of asbestos and lead paint from historic structures, competes with
140
the minimal intervention standards envisioned by the park. 154 At the state level,
compliance with federal guidelines often competes with attention to visitor defined needs.
Bodie, for instance, has created an image of itself that has become part of the American
psyche; visitors would probably be very disappointed if Bodie reversed its policy of
arrested decay, even though it does not necessarily represent landscape preservation
practices. At the grassroots level, building and sustaining community identity often
drives preservation efforts. However, enthusiasm can tum into apathy; working on a
restoration project may provide a sense of action and satisfaction, but continued
maintenance and struggling for funding is less attractive, especially to those working on a
voluntary basis. In Tonopah, heritage managers have had to cultivate partnerships with
economic development and tourism agencies in order to keep preservation efforts viable.
Personal values that shape experience and meaning also playa central role in landscape
preservation practice. At the Argo Gold Mill and Museum, the manager's personal
agenda defines preservation activities, and while those practices may not follow
established guidelines, they are validated by the community through visitation in the form
of school field trips and promotion in the tourist literature, as well as contested through
struggles around land use and property rights. The variety of experiences at each of these
sites demonstrates how perceptions, values and advocacy at all levels greatly impact the
processes and outcomes of industrial landscape preservation efforts.
154 Gilbert, et aI., 49.
141
Findings and Recommendations
The introduction to this study described four values in particular that guided the
inquiry. These values provided an umbrella for ways to think about industrial heritage
preservation strategies. To reiterate, they proposed that historic industrial landscapes
should be valued and protected as much as any other category of heritage, that their
protection should be a generative act, that they should reveal the layers of their history,
and that they should be managed in a way that attends to their dynamic nature as cultural
landscapes. This study finds that these values, though not always articulated or
consistent, are in fact active at many industrial heritage sites. All of the case studies
examined protect and value their cultural landscape, though the degree of
comprehensiveness and the values motivating preservation varies. In Tonopah, and to a
lesser extent Kennecott and Argo, preserving the industrial landscape has been
consciously constructed as a service benefitting the community through economic,
educational, and recreational opportunities. Managing the landscape as a living entity
and clarifying layers of history is less evident in these places, however, where
preservation planning and practice continues to focus on particular time periods or
landscape features over a comprehensive temporal and spatial approach. Places such as
Bodie, for example, consciously choose to focus on space and materiality over the
expression of time and change as a cultural landscape preservation strategy. Most places
attend to values associated with the heritage landscape in mixed ways, emphasizing those
that reflect their particular management philosophies and overlooking others that may not
fit into established practices.
142
In order to fully incorporate the consideration of values into preservation practice,
some perceptive changes must be made at the beginning of the preservation process.
This means modifying the current preservation framework at industrial heritage sites to
incorporate the landscape characteristics ofprocess, change, time and space in order to
fully express the dynamic values associated with the cultural landscape. Suggested
measures to take include:
• Allowing the landscape to express the passage oftime. This does not mean
minimizing significant historical periods or abandoning restoration and
rehabilitation efforts. It does mean recognizing that all time periods contribute to
the landscape story, including the present and future, and each contains varying
levels of significance that ought to be protected and interpreted.
• Viewing space, or the physical remains ofthe landscape, as just one element
among many creating the heritage place. Space is essential to protect and
preserve as a tangible representation of landscape evolution, but it is not the only
element of significance. The historic and contemporary actors shaping the
landscape and their values are just as important to the landscape story. Values
should therefore be incorporated and articulated along with the material
expression of the landscape.
• Integrating process and change as components ofsignificance and integrity. A
strict focus on the integrity of original historic fabric or historic landscape
configuration may not apply to industrial landscapes, where changes in
143
technology, use, process and perception are precisely what contribute to landscape
significance.
• Recognizing that National Register criteria express the values ofsome, but not
all, stakeholders involved in industrial heritage preservation. This does not
challenge the importance of laws and guidelines that reflect and substantiate the
preservation values common to all organizationa11evels. However, heritage site
management must also illuminate, understand, and manage values that reflect
additional stakeholder concerns.
These are not insignificant modifications to the heritage agenda. Altering landscape
preservation policy to include consideration of multiple values and value systems, like all
important legislation, will entail a long process of negotiation. Integrating values into
industrial landscape preservation practice and methodology provides a more immediate
way to begin managing these landscapes as the dynamic places they represent. For
instance, the first step in evaluating historic landscapes begins with identifying its
association with one of the four criteria listed by the National Register. This process
provides a perfect opportunity to also identify the range of stakeholders and values
associated with the landscape, including visions for future use and associations not
defined by the literature. Places such as Tonopah Historic Mining Park have done this,
though perhaps not consciously, through establishing a board of directors comprised of a
wide variety of interests that advises on the meaning and treatment of the landscape in
addition to using Secretary of the Interior Standards to guide preservation practices.
144
Evaluating the significance and integrity of the landscape also comprises a vital
part of this process. As discussed throughout this study, industrial landscapes are in part
defined by the multitude ofprocesses and rapid changes that accompany the industrial
enterprise; they are often significant precisely because of this movement and progression.
Therefore, integrity of historic fabric as currently defined by National Register criteria
may not be an appropriate measure for determining the significance of historic industrial
landscapes. At Argo Gold Mill and Museum, for example, much of the historic
landscape character has been lost or modified; however, attention to historic processes
remains strong at the site, and its significance has transformed from a place of industry to
a place of education and entertainment. Integrating process and change as components of
industrial landscape integrity would thus help to identify and explain the importance of
these kinds of landscapes.
Identifying periods of significance is a part of the categorization process that
poses a challenge for historic industrial landscapes. Intimately related to the discussion
of integrity, periods with a high number of existing features are often considered more
valuable than others. However, the features remaining in an industrial landscape do not
always reflect its full history. Allowing the passage of time to show, either through
interpretation or selective treatment strategies, is the best way to fully describe the
landscape story. In, Kennecott, for example, the active mining period from 1900-1938
has been determined the period of significance for interpretive purposes. Rather than
restore the landscape to this period, managers have allowed for the reflection of time by
leaving evidence of the natural and cultural forces that have affected the site since its
145
abandonment. What constitutes a landscape characteristic could therefore be expanded to
include broader systems, processes and values in addition to their material
representations. As discussed previously, cultural landscape guidelines have taken great
strides in identifying processes that influence the nature of the cultural landscape.
However, the expression of time and change tend to be considered qualities that
compromise the integrity of these components, rather than as essential parts of landscape
evolution. Bodie is a prime example of this struggle, attempting to protect and interpret a
narrow definition of time and historic fabric. Integrating the values discussed in this
study into the preservation process itself is one way to assure that values such as the
importance of time and change are taken into account. Figure 7.1 illustrates how these
principles might be incorporated into current preservation procedures.
The interconnectedness of values and characteristics defines the historic industrial
landscape. Considering values at the beginning of the preservation process thus helps to
provide a more holistic picture of the heritage landscape. Placing the values of all
stakeholders on the same level challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of
preservation practice that have been based on a clear hierarchy of value codified in
regulation and evaluative criteria. However, without attending to the dynamic character
of the landscape, its preservation will not be successful. Governments and preservation
organizations throughout the world have already begun to address the complicated
process of incorporating values into cultural landscape preservation. The suggestions
listed above provide new ways to articulate and approach issues already operating in
cultural landscape preservation practice.
146
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------ --------------------------
147
Future Research
Addressing such an ephemeral topic as value in preservation practice is a
complicated and nuanced process with many layers. This study has focused on
examining existing frameworks for preserving cultural landscapes and industrial heritage
sites to better understand how cultural resource managers incorporate values into their
preservation practices. This focus has necessarily left out many other issues important to
a comprehensive evaluation of industrial landscape preservation. For one, this study did
not address the debates regarding authenticity in preservation practice, which is a topic
often discussed in relation to industrial heritage sites. The landscape values described in
this paper may actually challenge the notion of authenticity, which values materiality, or
the perception of the truth of materiality, over process and change. Tackling this tension
would be an interesting topic for further analysis.
The study also only touched upon the very real and large issue of balancing
conflicting perceptions of nature and culture in conservation practice. This debate is
essential to a comprehensive understanding of landscape preservation values and
practices, however it is simply too complex to fit into the framework of this study.
Dealing with the toxic residues of industrial activity, especially in mining and milling
sites, is an especially prominent topic for industrial landscape preservation. In depth
analysis of these issues should comprise a crucial component of future inquiry into
industrial landscape preservation strategies. More investigation into cultural landscape
preservation strategies and their associated value systems in other countries would also be
helpful for comparing and developing preservation strategies attentive to the needs of
148
historic industria11andscapes. Interesting steps have been taken towards incorporating
values more forcefully into the heritage agenda in places such as Great Britain, Australia,
and Canada that could provide models for how to integrate value systems into
preservation practice and legislation in the United States. Introducing the concept of
landscape values in this study is thus just one step towards refining a real preservation
strategy for historic industrial landscape preservation, and cultural landscape preservation
in general.
Integration
Examining the mechanisms for preserving historic industrial landscapes
demonstrates the benefits and limitations of current landscape preservation practice. The
dynamic essence of the landscape must be allowed to stand out if landscape preservation
is to adequately illustrate the complexity and distinctiveness of place. Historic
preservation faces the challenge of moving beyond the accepted view of treatment
towards a policy of managing change that allows landscapes to continue to evolve. As
Melnick so clearly states, "If we insist upon forcing a landscape concern into a non-
landscape paradigm, then we will not succeed" in addressing cultural landscape
preservation issues. 155 Preserving cultural landscapes should be viewed as a
transforrnative process integrating the multiple values that create place. Value does not
exist only in the physical remains of the past. It is up to preservation professionals,
policy makers, and community members who care about their historic places to embrace
155 Melnick, "Strangers," 11.
-------------
149
the many values that constitute heritage. Only then will preserving cultural landscapes,
and especially historic industrial landscapes, truly comprise a representative heritage.
150
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